


A Rift Through Time and Memories

by JB Harris (LizAna)



Series: Torchwood: Outlawed [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Fix-It, CoE fix-it kind of, Far Future, Ianto's not dead, Kind of AU, M/M, getting the team back together, house of the dead, janto, saved by the rift, torchwood audios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13209762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizAna/pseuds/JB%20Harris
Summary: Directly follows on from House of the Dead. Ianto doesn't die when he closes the rift, but falls through it instead. I've seen this idea done a few times already by others, so kudos to them coz it's an awesome idea. In my spin on the story, Ianto goes forward into the distant future.  Jack has had his memories stolen and Torchwood is now an outlawed organisation.





	1. Chapter 1

_“No! Not like this. Don’t leave me like this.”_

_“I have to go, Jack.”_

_“Ianto, no! I never said it properly before.”_

_“It doesn’t need saying.”_

_“Yes! Yes it does. Ianto Jones… I love you.”_

_“And I love you too, Jack.”_

Ianto tightened his grip on the box containing the device to destroy Syriath and close the rift. He’d put on a brave face for Jack, because he’d needed Jack to be okay. Jack had to go on living, while he—

He had to die.

Again.

As deaths went, he supposed this was a good one. Unlike the first time. Not that he could remember it. All he had to go on was what Jack had told him a few minutes ago. That he’d caught some alien virus and died. Maybe it was better that he didn’t remember. Getting sick can’t have been a good way to go out. At least this time he was on his feet and fighting. At least he was saving the world. But did that mean he wouldn’t remember again once it was all over? Because he truly didn’t recall being dead at all. Didn’t have any memories of being on the other side. Maybe there really was nothing but darkness, like Owen had said.

The building around him rumbled and shook, the roof and walls starting to crack, bits of plaster dropping from the ceiling and glass falling out of the windows. One pane tipped out whole and smashed on the table next to him, sending glass shards flying like projectiles. A sharp pain flared in his upper arm and he looked down to see blood staining his shirt. He’d gotten cut. So he _was_ alive. Fully resurrected. He’d thought maybe he was just some really convincing ghost, that he couldn’t have truly left the building with Jack and gone back to his life like he hadn’t died six months ago.

The evidence that he was actually flesh and blood made his courage waver, made him wish he had stepped out into the street with Jack and let the end of the world be someone else’s problem for a change. Except it was too late now. Syriath was rising—some kind of ancient evil, older than the universe itself—and the rift was going to tear right open.

“You always knew it was going to end sooner rather than later,” he told himself, sliding his fingers to the lip of the box. “Because that’s what Torchwood is. It’s the beginning of the end. No one survives it. Especially people who fall in love with Jack bloody Harkness.”

He sucked in a long breath—his last breath—and then opened the box. Energy blasted over him and it all went white, hot, painful and numb. Everything and nothing all at once. Like getting torn apart and smothered in the same instance. It went on for eternity. He lived forever in a state of absolute infinity and total emptiness.

Except just when he’d come to terms with this being _it_ , sensation returned, overwhelming his entire body. Noise, and light, and air rushing out of his lungs. He landed, face down, smacking into something hard and unforgiving. Agony radiated through his entire body, and it was like he’d never felt any kind of pain before. Like he was somehow all brand new, his body and mind didn’t know how to process it. He curled into a ball, clenching his jaw, fisting his hands, riding it out and waiting for some sense of normality to return.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but voices registered. Close by, getting closer. The distraction seemed to work, or maybe his body was finally acclimatising to things—to whatever or wherever he was. He rolled on to his back, panting, the air tasting funny, like it was laced with metals or chemicals or something. After a long moment, he squinted his eyes open, blinking against the light, his vision blurry and too sensitive. Gradually, everything came into focus. Buildings and blue sky.

“There. Over there!” A voice bounced off the nearby buildings and he rolled his head to the side to see two pairs of legs running down the empty street toward him. Funny, but apart from a few unfamiliar buildings, this kind of looked like Cardiff. Had he survived Syriath, and the rift closing, and the pub falling down around him? But where was Jack? He’d been out on the street a minute ago. And it’d been night. Now it was day. Where were all the people and cars and buses and pigeons? The street was weirdly empty apart from the two men who finally reached him, practically skidding to a stop on the cobblestones. 

“Get him up.” The two men grabbed him and hauled him upright, making the world spin and his stomach pitch alarmingly. Oh God, he was going to be sick. “Come on, we have to move, they’ll be right on top of us any second now.”

His legs were like undercooked pudding, not supporting his weight properly. But the two men weren’t letting that slow them down. They looped an arm each over their shoulders and practically dragged him down the street at a run. Just as they reached the corner, a high-pitched whine sounded a second before something hit the bricks on the building near his head, spiting tiny shards of bricks and dust outward. Shit. Was someone shooting at them?

“Pick up the pace!” One of the men holding him said.

Even though he had no idea who these people were or what the bloody hell was going on—because his brain wasn’t working all that well—they seemed like the better option than whoever was shooting at them. He concentrated, forcing his legs to cooperate so that he was at least stumbling along with them and not so much of a hindrance.

They rounded another corner, this time into an alleyway. There was some kind of… vehicle parked there, except it looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Like an honest to God space shuttle or flying car thingy.

The men hustled him on, into the back, and a hatch lowered behind them. They unceremoniously dropped him and he landed hard against some sort of crates that had a kind of elastic netting holding them to the floor. He slipped down to sit. Actually it was more like his legs slowly gave out again. The vehicle lifted, smoothly, almost unnoticeably, like going up in an elevator. Were they actually flying? One of the men who’d grabbed him disappeared through a door that slid open, presumably to the front of the vessel, while the other one paused to look down at him.

“Are you okay?”

He swallowed, considering the question carefully now that he’d stopped and was actually sitting still. “Sick. Think I’m going to be sick.”

The man pressed his lips together as if he really didn’t want to be dealing with that, but turned to open a compartment in the wall and grabbed out a sick-bag like they used in hospitals.

Ianto took it, but just held it, forcing himself to breath through the churning in his guts. He didn’t think he actually had anything in his stomach to throw up anyway. Because he’d been dead for six months. And somehow resurrected. Doubtless without whatever he ate last in his belly.

The ridiculous thought worked to distract him and he relaxed back against the crate behind him, taking a deeper breath.

“Better now?” the man asked, crouching down.

“A bit.” He took another look around the vessel. They seemed to be in some kind of cargo hold.

“Think you can walk?”

He shifted his legs. They felt stronger, and his head wasn’t spinning as much anymore.

“Let’s see, shall we?” Using the crate for balance, he slowly got to his feet, relieved when he actually felt okay. “Sorry, but where are we. And what the hell just happened?”

“We were hoping you could tell us. You fell out of the rift. You’re just lucky we got to you before the government did.”

“And you are?”

The man crossed his arms, expression not giving anything away. “Come on, let’s go sit up front with the others.”

Not waiting for a reply, the man stepped past him headed through the automatic sliding door. Ianto followed, his body a little uncoordinated and awkward, like he didn’t quite remember how all his limbs worked.

Just as he stepped through the door, he had to stop again. The craft really was like something out of a sci fi movie. They were flying high into the sky—seemingly headed out into space at an impossible speed. There were six empty seats, various screens with all kinds of information displayed on them. It somehow almost reminded him of the equipment they’d had in the SUV. At the very front, the cockpit—he supposed it was called—was slightly sunken.

Two seats were integrated into the controls. The other man who’d picked him up in the alley sat on the left, half turned and talking to the pilot who—

No. He had to be imaging it. That the back of the pilot’s head looked achingly familiar.

The man he’d been speaking to walked over and offered him a canteen. He hoped there was water in it, he was parched. Apparently dying and falling through the rift were thirsty work.

“Where are we?” he asked, gaze glued to the back of the pilot’s head. But there was no reaction at his words. Surely if it was him, he would have turned around, would have recognized the sound of his voice. He was just imaging something he wanted to be true.

“Leaving the preserved historical sanctuary of Earth,” the man answered.

Preserved historical sanctuary of Earth? What the bloody hell did that even mean? But suddenly pieces started clicking together in his mind and he didn’t like the picture they were forming. Empty streets in Cardiff. Some kind of flying shuttle like straight out of a sci-fi movie. Preserved historical sanctuary of Earth… No. It couldn’t be true. But as scrambled as his brain still felt, it was the only thing that made sense.

“I was just in 2009. No, it might have been 2010. I’m not really clear on that. But what year is it now?”

The man he’d been speaking to glanced over at the other guy sitting on the left of the pilot. They seemed to reach some kind of silent agreement before the man next him returned his attention to him.

“It’s 3157.”

“3157?” he repeated, mind scrabbling over the number. “You mean I fell through the rift over a thousand years into the future?”

Or, had he spent over a thousand years inside the rift, only to fall out now for some reason? It had felt like an eternity had passed in there, but at the same time it’d been like a second.

“Apparently,” the man replied. “So you’ll understand why we have a lot of questions for you.”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one.” He ran a hand through his hair, having trouble coming to terms with his reality. They’d known people could time-jump through the rift after a plane from the 1920s had arrived with three passengers, but that’d been a few decades. This… this was extreme. And the rift. The device to destroy Syriath was meant to seal the rift permanently. That had been the whole point. He'd given up on walking out of that pub with Jack, he'd given up on Jack, so the rift would be closed forever and the world would be safe. Except here he was a thousand years later and he'd fallen out of it again. It'd been for nothing. He should have left the bloody device and taken his chance on stepping out into the street like Jack had wanted. 

“How did you know?” he asked them. “Why did you come and get me?”

“We monitor the rift.” The man sitting to the left of the pilot replied. “And we came to get you because otherwise the government would have. And believe me, you don’t want to know what they do to beings that fall out of the rift. We save as many as we can, but sometimes we don’t make it in time.”

“Wait.” He passed another glance around the interior of the ship, suddenly realizing why it had reminded him of the inside of the SUV. “Are you _Torchwood_?”

A thousand years in the future and Torchwood was still persisting? He didn’t know whether that was hilarious or pathetic.

“ _Auto-pilot engaged_.” A pleasant voice announced from the cockpit.

The pilot spun his chair and stood. “How the hell do you know about Torchwood?”

Ianto’s heart skipped and then tripped into overtime, making his pulse race. Because he hadn’t been imagining things.

“Jack! Thank God.” He started forward, but Jack held out a hand to stop him, expression detached, no emotion, absolutely nothing in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

His heart that’d been racing a moment ago pretty much flat-lined, making his entire body go numb. He felt like he’d fallen out of the rift all over again, pain radiating through him.

“Bloody hell, Jack. I knew you’d forget me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jack didn’t reply, studying the young man standing in front of him. His dark hair was cut short, but slightly wavy, features pale. The sleeve of his white shirt was torn and bloodied, marring the otherwise neatness of his pressed grey trousers, vest and tie. And his eyes—they were the bluest eyes Jack had ever seen, leaving his heart pounding against the inside of his chest. There was something about him. Something that made his breath catch and the void in his mind where his memories used to be ache worse than it had in a long time.

“How long?” the man asked, swallowing after he said the words. His blue gaze searched his face, like he was looking for something, desperate for something Jack couldn’t give him. “How long did it take before you forgot me?”

Before Jack could say anything, he gave a bleak laugh. “That’s a stupid question, though, isn’t it? If you can’t remember me, it’s not like you’re going to know when you forgot me.”

Jack clenched his jaw, feeling a pinch in his guts as almost indescribable pain shadowed the man’s gaze. He dropped his eyes to the floor, shoulders slumping as he shifted to sit in a nearby seat. He put his elbows on his knees and set his head in his hands, the very picture of desolation.

Jack glanced at Noah and Lucas standing nearby. “Can you take over at the helm? I need a minute here.”

The two men nodded, not even trying to hide the fact they were clearly curious as hell about what was going on. He could sympathise. He had a damn lot of questions that needed answering.

Once Noah and Lucas had sat themselves down in the cockpit and turned their attention to taking the shuttle back to the Archives, he shifted to sit in the seat across from the man who’d fallen out of the rift.

“So, you got a name?”

At first, the man didn’t respond except to shake his head slightly. But then he blew out a hard breath and straightened to look at him, his eyes now a little red-rimmed.

“Ianto Jones,” he replied, not directly meeting his gaze.

“Ianto Jones,” Jack repeated slowly, liking the way it rolled off his tongue. “And how do you know about Torchwood?”

Ianto ran a hand through his hair, messing it up a little. “Because I worked for you—for Torchwood three. The hub, back in 2009. Where I died. But now here I am. Maybe I didn’t survive Syriath. Maybe this is hell.”

Ianto finally looked directly at him. “Please tell me this is hell, because otherwise—”

“Otherwise?” he prompted when Ianto didn’t finish.

“Otherwise what the hell am I supposed to do with the fact you don’t remember me?”

The shuttle chimed, indicating they were docking at the Archives. “We’re here. Come on, let’s go in and sort this out.”

“Where are we?” Though Ianto asked the question, the dull, almost defeated tone to his words made it seem like he didn’t really care about the answer.

“The Torchwood Archives.” He stood, tugging his greatcoat straight. “It’s kind of like a spacestation. We’re cloaked in orbit around Mars. It’s as close to Earth as we can get without the government finding us.”

“And why are you hiding from the government?” This time, there was a hint of exasperation in Ianto’s voice.

“Because Torchwood is outlawed. Has been for the last few hundred years.”

Ianto got to his feet with a sharp smile. “Well, that must suck. You used to love sauntering around the place announcing _we’re Torchwood_.”

The last few words had been uttered in a deeper tone, with an accent a close approximation to his own, leaving him grinning.

“Hiding away and depriving the universe of this jawline? Yeah, it’s a little humbling.”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “Clearly a thousand years hasn’t done your ego any favours.”

Noah and Lucas came over to join them, the ship powering down since they’d docked. The two of them were staring at Ianto with even more curiosity now, obviously having overheard most of their conversation. They probably wanted to know what Ianto knew about him almost as much as he did.

He couldn’t remember what he’d been like back in 2009, those memories were gone. Stolen. Everything just blank. He didn’t even know how old he was any longer, because he had no years to recall and tally. All he had were the last fifty years, from when he’d woken up naked on a barren moon in the Rhonis nebula. He’d known who he was, that he ran an outlawed organisation called Torchwood, plus a few other basics, but everything else was just a hole in his mind that ached and gave him a migraine when he tried to remember.

For years he’d tortured himself, thinking if he could push through the pain barrier, he’d be able to unlock it all from the depths of his mind. But it hadn’t achieved anything—apart from killing himself with an aneurism once or twice. Eventually he’d started believing that the memories weren’t simply buried, they were actually gone.

After that, he’d divided up Torchwood’s resources somewhat. Half the time they were monitoring the rift and helping the unfortunate beings who fell through it—when they could get to them before the government did—and the rest of the time they were searching for answers about his past, who might have stolen his memories and why. 

Hopefully, Ianto would be able to provide him with a few more missing pieces of the puzzle.

He led the way as they left the ship and stepped out into the docking bay. As they crossed toward the airlock leading into the main part of the Archives, he glanced back over his shoulder at Ianto. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking around, taking everything in, a hint of awe in his expression. Had to be a bit of a shock, leaping a thousand years into the future. There were quite a number of things Ianto would find different in this century.

The airlock hissed and then clunked, cycling out of place with a familiar clicking of gears. He could have made it roll silently, but for some weird reason, he enjoyed the sound. Plus it was a handy alert to let them know when they had visitors.

“Welcome to the Archives, Ianto Jones.” He stepped to the side and held out an arm. Noah and Lucas continued on, shrugging out of their jackets and taking out their weapons to put away.

Ianto didn’t seem to know what to look at first. The place was a bit of a mess. Things all kind of cobbled together. There were workstations, a tattered couch in front of a coffee table with last night’s take out containers still sitting on it. His office doors stood open, showing the random things scattered across his desk. There was a conference room and hot house on an upper level and through the middle of it all was the rounded base of the rift manipulator and monitor.

“Did you say _Ianto Jones_?” Tosh poked her head out from behind the computers she was working out, slipping her glasses off. “Oh my god!”

She jumped to her feet and ran over. “Ianto!”

Ianto’s expression was nothing but shock as Tosh wrapped her arms around him and hugged him with enthusiasm.

Of course, he should have clicked, even without his memories. Tosh would have worked with Ianto back in 2009.

“Tosh?” Ianto’s voice was hoarse as he belatedly hugged her back. “How are you here?”

“She’s not the original Tosh,” Jack quickly explained as Tosh stepped back again. “She’s a combination of hard light projection and nanobots. Feels real, looks real, has Tosh’s personality and all her memories. The real Tosh died in—”

“I know, I was there,” Ianto cut in with a glare, obviously not wanting to discuss it. “Why do you have some projection copy of Tosh walking around?”

“Because she was one of the best agents Torchwood ever employed. Her mind is brilliant, even by today’s standards. She comes in handy.”

“Right, because resurrecting your dead friends, that’s not weird at all,” Ianto muttered, looking around again until his gaze landed on Noah and Lucas standing nearby. “What about them, are they dead friends you decided to bring back as well?”

Ianto seemed kind of pissed off about Tosh. He probably wasn’t going to be happy about Gwen either then.

“They’re real,” he replied. “Idiots, insisting on working for an outlawed organisation, but real flesh and blood. I need to tell you-”

“Ianto bloody Jones. Is that really you?” Gwen’s voice carried from the level above where she’d just come out of the conference room.

Ianto looked up, brows arching, clearly flabbergasted. “Gwen as well?”

She hurried down the stairs and came over to excitedly hug Ianto as Tosh had.

“Jack, you bugger, you didn’t tell us you’d decided to restore Ianto. Got sick of Noah’s coffee, did you?”

He had no idea what coffee had to do with anything, but shook his head. “He’s not a projection. He’s real. He’s what fell through the rift.”

“Get out!” Gwen’s eyes widened as she looked Ianto up and down. “But how? Ianto died in 2009. And as far as I remember, he never went through the rift before that.”

“So what about Owen then?” Ianto turned on him, anger clear in the way he held his body rigid. “Is he about to pop out somewhere and start snarking at me to make him a coffee? Everyone from Torchwood three got a look-in except _me_?”

“Owen isn’t here. I’m sorry, Ianto, I know this must all seem hard right now—” Gwen reached up and set a hand on his shoulder, but he angrily shrugged it off.

“Just don’t.” Ianto paced a few steps away, hands on his hips, steps tight. “This is 3157, you’ve got a flying SUV and Torchwood is now a bloody space station. So, you must have the technology to send me back, right?”

Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Ianto demanded, stepping closer to him, expression swiftly heading toward furious.

“The rift is more unstable now than it’s ever been. Things are constantly falling through it. Pockets of time from the past show up all over Earth every other day. It’s part of the reason humanity abandoned the planet and turned it into a persevered historical sanctuary.”

“And Torchwood were blamed for it,” Tosh put in with her usual succinct manner.

“Why?” Ianto asked, momentarily distracted.

“Actually, we’re not sure. Most of Torchwood’s records were lost when the archives on Earth were destroyed a few hundred years ago and Jack doesn’t remember. All we know is there was some kind of massive rift storm and there's been no way to close it ever since.”

“Yeah, there seems to be a lot Jack doesn’t remember,” Ianto muttered, which caused Tosh and Gwen to share a look of dawning comprehension between them.

Great, pretty much everyone seemed to know what was going on except him.

“Look, clearly there’s a lot of things we need to discuss,” he put in, trying for a calming tone since Ianto looked like he was on the verge of completely losing it. “Why don’t we take this up to the conference room?”

“Not yet,” Ianto held up a hand like he wanted everything to stop. “I need a minute. Bloody hell, I need a coffee.”

Gwen took his arm, sympathy in her expression as she looked fondly at him. “Come on, this way.”

As they walked away, he went over to Tosh’s side. She glanced up at him warily.

“Tell me, Tosh, who was he, back in 2009?”

Her gaze ran over his face, and he could tell she was remembering her other life, her real life, before she’d died and been brought back as a nano hard light projection.

“I don’t think it’s my place to say, Jack, you need to hear it from him. But just be careful how you tread.” She didn’t wait for him to reply, but slipped her glasses back on and returned to her computer station, back to the equations she was running on the instability of the rift.

He glanced toward the amenities area where the coffee machine and a few other things were set up to one side. Gwen was standing back and Ianto was wiping something on the coffee machine with a towel, before arranging the things he needed to make a cup.

There was a pit in his stomach, and in the back of his mind was a dull ache, like he wanted to try remembering, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Because even without his memories, it was like his body remembered. Like he was feeling more alive than he had since he’d woken up empty and disorientated on that moon. Like his very cells were sparking whenever Ianto stepped close to him. Like he’d found home and could finally let his guard down just a little.

Jack got the feeling that if his memories hadn’t been stolen, Ianto Jones would have been the one person he’d never forget, not in a thousand years. Not even in a million years.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Ianto’s hand were shaking as he made the coffee, but if Gwen noticed, she didn’t say anything.

Gwen. And Tosh. He couldn’t believe there were real-life-like copies of them walking around a thousand years in the future. What the hell would they have thought of that, if they’d known? Tosh probably would have liked the idea, but Gwen, she might have been pissed. She’d never fully accepted that when she’d joined Torchwood, it really was forever. Beyond putting all of their personal belongings in storage and cryo-freezing their bodies in the archives. Though, he’d never imagined anything like this might come about after he died.

He suddenly wondered what had happened to his body, his original body. His real body? He didn’t know how he’d been resurrected, but he somehow knew this body wasn’t the one he’d been born with, the one that’d suffered a broken leg when he’d been a kid, the one he’d grown through his awkward teenage years with and put up with those gits at school who’d constantly teased him. The one that’d gotten bruised and bloodied too many times to count working for Torchwood. The one that’d loved Lisa. The one that Jack had known just how to touch to send him out of his mind—

He fumbled the cup, spilling hot coffee across the back of his hand.

“ _Ow_! Damn it.” He wrapped the towel he was holding over the burn as pain flared.

“Are you okay?” Gwen stepped up to his side and took his hand, pulling the towel back. “You’ve scalded yourself. And don’t think I didn’t notice the blood on your arm. How about we leave the coffee to Noah and get this taken care of?”

Before he could agree, Gwen linked her arm through his and tugged him into a walk. They left the kitchenette area and rounded the base of what he thought might be some kind of rift monitor. Whether intentional or not, the Archives bore a striking resemblance to the hub. Not exactly the same, it obviously wasn’t underground and the water tower was missing. Plus, everything was just that little bit space-age-y. But the layout was basically the same and it was all close enough that he could nearly feel at home.

And the sunken medical suite was exactly where he guessed it might be, except it wasn’t rounded like Owen’s area had been, it was closer to being square.

Gwen stopped in front of a screen and tapped the shiny surface. “Right-o, get your kit off then.”

Still clutching the towel on the burn, he sent her a disbelieving look. She laughed, shaking her head a little.

“Well, it was worth a try. But I probably will have to cut the sleeve of your shirt, unless you really do want to strip off your top half.”

He glanced down at the ripped sleeve. The blood had dried into it. Didn’t seem like much point trying to salvage it.

“Do whatever you have to.” He shifted to sit on the nearby examination table while Gwen fiddled with some kind of instruments.

“Okay, let’s see how bad that burn is.” She took the towel from him and then wrapped her fingers around his palm, lifting his hand into the bright light shining down in the medical bay. Her skin felt real and warm against his. If Jack hadn’t told him she was a nano hard light thingy, he would never have known it wasn’t really Gwen.

Gwen made a confused humming noise.

“What is it?” he asked as she leaned back.

“The burn, maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Seems like it’s gone.”

“But it hurt like it’d burned.” He examined the back of his hand, but where there’d been a red welt before, now there was nothing.

“Oh well. What about this arm then? Fair bit of blood there, must be hurting a lot.”

Actually, he hadn’t noticed it since it’d first happened, before he’d gone through the rift.

Gwen poked a finger into the tear of the sleeve and pulled it wider. Despite the fact he’d already written off the shirt, he couldn’t help wincing at the sound of the material ripping.

“When did this happen?” Gwen asked. She ripped even more, then he could feel her fingers lightly running over his bicep.

“I don’t know. Before I fell into the rift. Why? Does it need stiches?”

“Actually,” Gwen stepped back, tight smile on her lips but not reaching her eyes. The one he’d seen her use when she wanted to keep people calm before imparting bad news. “There’s nothing there. Not a scratch. Not even a scar.”

“That’s… weird.” He rubbed his own hand over his unbroken skin, trying to work out the implications of this. “Maybe I really did spend a long time inside the rift.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

And now she was using that tone of voice that said she actually did think it was something but wasn’t going to say that out loud. Not to him anyway.

“Gwen, even after a thousand years, you’re not fooling me.” He slid down from the examination table. “And now that you’ve finished tearing up my shirt, I don’t suppose you’ve got something else I can change into.”

“I could probably find—”

“You know, I thought for a second there I was going to walk in on a very different scene,” Jack interrupted Gwen from where he’d stopped on the mezzanine that ran around the top of the medical area.

“Tearing off clothes is your department, Jack, so you can leave me well out of it,” Gwen replied with a cheeky smile.

“I can find something for you to change into,” Jack offered, a hint of uncertainty in his usually confident gaze.

Ianto glanced at Gwen, though he wasn’t sure why.

“Go on, then.” She shooed him toward the stairs, following after him and then disappearing to where Tosh was seated at her workstation.

He didn’t know why he was so reluctant to be alone with Jack—actually, he did know. There were just too many reasons to make sense of even one.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, he followed Jack through a door that, if this had been the hub, would have led to the archives. They stepped into a long corridor with various doors leading off it, but didn’t go far before Jack turned and went through one.

Inside there were rows of some kind of storage compartments. Jack went over to one and pressed on the front. It made a slight whooshing noise and then slid free.

“I might be able to rummage up another suit, I know I’ve seen some around. But if you just want to change your shirt—”

Jack pulled out a garment and shook it free. It was a subtle, elegant red shirt. Not a crease in it, even though it’d been away in storage. He couldn’t help smiling as he reached out and took it, the material perfect weight and smooth to touch.

“What is it?” Jack asked cautiously, like he wasn't sure if he had the right to know.

“You always did tell me I looked good in red.” He glanced up after he said the words, knowing how they must have sounded, the implication behind them.

Jack was staring hard at him, almost as if he was in pain. “You and I—”

“We were—” He struggled to find the right way to describe what they were, even though everyone had started calling them a couple in the weeks leading up to the 456 aliens appearing. Jack had hated the word, and the more people had mentioned it—the more Ianto had mentioned it—the more Jack had seemed to pull back.

“We were together,” he finished, now avoiding Jack’s gaze.

More than together, he had loved Jack more deeply than he’d ever loved anyone. Still loved him, so much it left his body aching, especially now as he stared at Jack who wasn’t exactly his Jack.

“And then you died,” Jack said slowly.

“Apparently.” He forced a smile on himself. “Not doing a very good job of it, though, am I? Because here I am. Alive and more than a little confused if we’re being honest.”

“You going to change into that, or just hold it all day?” Jack nodded to the shirt in his hands, a hint of challenge in his gaze.

He hesitated a moment before handing it back to Jack and then reaching up to pull his tie loose.

“I didn’t forget, you know.” Jack shifted to lean against the storage compartments, not bothering to hide the fact that his attention was on Ianto’s fingers as he started slipping the buttons free on his vest.

He didn’t say anything, because the evidence spoke for itself, really.

“They were stolen,” Jack continued after a long moment, his voice heavy. He lifted his gaze to meet Ianto’s eyes. “My memories were all stolen about fifty years ago. Anything before that is gone. My whole life. Don’t even know how old I am exactly.”

Ianto had stopped with his shirt half-unbuttoned, shock rolling through him in one long wave. Someone had stolen Jack’s memories? That was why he hadn’t recognized him.

“Well, now I feel like an arse, jumping to all the wrong conclusions,” he muttered.

“You weren’t to know.” Jack pushed off from where he was leaning and came closer to him. He draped the red shirt over his forearm and reached down to finish unbuttoning Ianto’s shirt.

“But why would someone do that?” The revelation was spinning through his mind with so much force that he barely noticed Jack pushing his shirt off his shoulders.

 “You know, I’d really like to know that myself. So if you happen to find them, maybe you could ask for me.”

Despite the light, joking tone to Jack’s voice, Ianto could tell this was really bothering him. That it’d deeply affected him. And of course it would. He couldn’t even imagine how violating it would feel. How confused and detached he must be from everything and everyone. Plus, he’d have no idea who to trust or where to start looking—

“Jack, I’m so sorry.” It seemed like a pointless thing to say, nowhere near enough, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Jack set a hand on his bare shoulder, and the touch echoed warmly all the way through him.

“Unless you were the one who took them, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” Jack eyed him closely, but there was an underlying amusement to it. “You’re not, are you?”

“Well, at least they didn’t take your sense of humour as well.” He took the shirt from Jack’s arm and shrugged into it.

“You know, of all the memories I didn’t know I was missing, I’m starting to think I’m sorry that I’m missing the ones of you most of all.” Jack slid his hands into his pockets, gaze on his chest before Ianto buttoned the shirt from the bottom up. “Of course, I suppose we can always make some new ones.”

He shifted back, flustered but also turned on, because yup, Jack just had to give him that look and he started getting hot all over. But this wasn’t the same Jack he’d left back in 2009. And when Jack stared at him, there was something missing in his gaze; that warmth of familiarity, the spark of real feeling. The depth of his regard.

He’d often doubted whether Jack really loved him the same way he’d loved Jack. But seeing him now, having him look at him with not much more than lust—the way he had that first night they’d almost kissed, when they’d captured Myfawny together—he could tell the difference. Jack had loved him. It’d been there in his eyes the whole time. He’d just let his doubts get in the way of seeing the truth.

And now that it was gone, letting anything happen between them would just seem cheap and empty.

“I’m sorry, Jack” he said, wincing when his voice came out uneven “I’m still getting my head around things, you know? I just don’t know—”

“Of course, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Jack looked away from him, clearly realizing he’d made an error and regretting it. “I should have thought—”

“No, it’s fine. Let’s just forget it, okay?” Talk about awkward. This was like the start of their relationship all over again, when he hadn’t known where he stood, but Jack had made his head spin and he’d barely been able to think about anything other than getting his hands all over Jack every time they’d been alone, while Jack had played it so frustratingly cool. Except things had been reversed a little this time, with him keeping his distance and Jack not knowing what to make of it.

“Let’s head back out and see if Noah’s got that coffee you were wanting.” Jack shot him a quick smile and then turned to walk out of the room.

“Yup, 3157 going great so far,” he mumbled to himself as he slid his hands into his pockets and followed after Jack.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack found everyone seated around the conference table when he returned to the hub, Ianto coming along silently a few steps behind him.

He’d gotten ahead of himself, flirted to avoid things getting too serious like he always did. These days, without his memories, that charming, flirty armour had become thicker than ever. Except it’d had the opposite effect and made things more awkward with Ianto. He hadn’t thought exactly what kind of relationship he and Ianto might have had back in 2009, but it seemed it might have been more serious than he’d assumed.

Which might be why Gwen and Tosh had never once mentioned Ianto in all the time since he’d restored them into hard light projections. He had rules when it came to his lost memories. He only wanted to know about the things that might provide clues to how and why his memories had been stolen. Not the personal stuff. Not the people he’d let down, the friends he’d watched die, the lovers he’d walked away from. He told them in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to hear about ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-spouses of any kind, or his rather extensive sexploits across both the galaxy and Earth.

He had too much guilt over the fact he didn’t remember any of them to want to deal with it. Not when the more pressing issue was obviously getting his memories back. He was belatedly realising that he had seen the initials _IJ_ in a few reports and other bits and pieces when Tosh and Gwen had added the early 21 st century to his timeline. They had a whole room set up that was purely dedicated to reconstructing his movements over the centuries.

There was a hell of a lot of information up there, but also a lot of holes. Decades and even hundreds of years where he hadn’t yet found anyone who could tell him where he’d been or what he’d been doing. If he and Ianto had been close, there might be things Ianto knew about him that Gwen and Tosh didn’t.

There had been a few times the name _Ianto_ had come up between Gwen and Tosh, but no more so than anyone else they’d been in contact with back in 2009, like Gwen’s husband, Rhys. He’d just never paid any attention, never attributed anything to the name. But seeing the face—that was a whole different story. Just by standing there looking at him, Ianto was doing things to his insides, unsettling him in a way he’d never felt in the last fifty years.

“Ianto, come sit by me, luv.” Gwen patted the seat next to her as Jack rounded the conference table and went to the front of the room.

There was an unclaimed cup of coffee sitting in the empty spot and Ianto picked it up before he even sat down.

“I remembered how you liked it. Noah might not be up to your standards—”

“Hey!” Noah protested indignantly.

“It’ll be fine. At this point, I’d even drink instant,” Ianto assured her before taking a sip.

Noah was looking expectantly at Ianto, who didn’t fail to notice.

“Um, its good,” Ianto said, sharing a sideways glance with Gwen, who laughed.

“That was so convincing. Don’t worry, Noah, once you have a cup of Ianto’s coffee, you’ll understand.”

Noah raised an eyebrow, as if he found that hard to believe, but didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” Jack said, gaining everyone’s attention. “Obviously we’ve found ourselves in a bit of a different situation to the usual rift activity rescue. Normal protocols aren’t going to apply here.”

“What are the normal protocols?” Ianto asked before he could continue.

“We wait twenty-four hours until the rift energy wears off,” Gwen answered. “Then find a safe place to relocate the person or being, and set them up in a new life.”

Ianto nodded, not seeming surprised. Jack assumed they’d probably done something similar back in 2009. Of course, the rift hadn’t been as active back then, so maybe they hadn’t had to do it all that often.

“So, what are you going to do with me then?” He sat back in his chair, expression stoic, but a hint of worry in his blue eyes.

“Well, we’re certainly not going to retcon you and pack you off somewhere,” Gwen said with a reassuring smile, before turning a hard look on him. “Right, Jack?”

He crossed his arms. “Not straight away.”

“Jack—” Gwen practically growled.

“I’m kidding.” He held up a calming hand, before settling his attention squarely on Ianto. “I wasn’t planning on adding anyone else to the team, but if you want something to do, we can always use the extra help around the Archives. Plus, I keep hearing about this coffee you’re so good at making.”

“So, it’s back to being the butler, is it?” Ianto seemed a little resigned to his fate.

“You were the butler before?” He arched a brow, glancing between Ianto, Gwen and Tosh for confirmation.

“No, he wasn’t,” Gwen insisted. “He was part of the team.”

“The part of the team who tidied up after us, made sure we ate, got us places on time and pretty much organised Jack’s entire life,” Tosh put in with an apologetic look.

“I was the butler,” Ianto reiterated. “An amazing butler, granted. But definitely the butler.”

“Come on, now, Ianto.” Gwen’s smile become mischievous. “You also doubled as the officeboy.”

“And sleeping with Jack, was that part of the job description?” Lucas put in with a teasing grin, slouching back in his chair and seeming more than a little entertained with himself.

“Oi!” Gwen tossed her half-eaten biscuit at him, which he caught and shoved in his mouth with a wink.

Ianto’s cheeks were slightly reddened, but he sent Lucas a steady look. “No, actually, that was my bonus for a job well done.”

Jack laughed, unable to help himself. Though he’d only met—or reacquainted himself—with Ianto a short hour ago, he could already see why he’d been so taken with him. Not only was he charming and gorgeous, but he was clearly also quick-witted and had a self-depreciating sense of humour. He idly wondered how Ianto would stand up in a fight if they ever decided to put him out in the field. He came across so well-put-together, all neat and reserved, but Jack got a definite sense there was fire hiding in his veins. He suddenly wanted to find out how much passion was concealed beneath the suit and the perfect hair.

“Well, Ianto.” He cleared his throat when his voice came out a little rough. “If you want to be the butler, you’re more than welcome to resume your duties here at Torchwood. Starting tomorrow, that is. After falling through the rift, you could probably use a bed.”

“A bed with Jack in it,” Lucas mumbled. This time Gwen leaned forward and hit a button on the screen set in the middle of the conference table that made Lucas’s chair tip over backwards.

Ianto watched on with little reaction as Lucas scrambled to his feet with a curse while Gwen and Noah laughed.

“Looks like things haven’t changed much around here, then.”

“You were expecting anything different with Jack in charge?” Tosh queried with a fond smile.

Ianto’s gaze slid over to him, and there was something intimate in his eyes, something that made Jack’s pulse pick up speed. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but it does make it easier, knowing so much of Torchwood has stayed the same.”

“Speaking of which.” Jack clapped his hands together. “Time to get back to work. Tosh, I need a report on the rift from when Ianto fell out. Gwen, have you finished following up on that tourist disappearing? If the rift took her, we need to add her to the watch list in case she comes back again. Noah, I haven’t seen anything on what the government did with that Paxtrian we failed to save two days ago. Lucas, the shuttle was sounding a little rough when we took her out today, take a look at the engines, would you?”

Everyone murmured their agreements and got up from the conference table. Both Gwen and Tosh sent him happy smiles as they left, like they were truly glad to have him back. Which he was still trying to come to terms with, that it wasn’t really Tosh and Gwen, yet they seemed to care about him exactly the same way the pair had when they’d been alive.

Once the others all left, he looked up at Jack, who was staring back at him in silence, expression hard to read. He’d gotten good at reading Jack over the few years he’d been at Torchwood three. At first, he’d prided himself on it as part of his job, watching Jack closely and anticipating what he would need. But finally, he’d admitted to himself, after Lisa, there was a deeper, more personal reason why he paid such close attention to Jack, why he was fascinated by his every move. And it’d had nothing to do with his job.

Of course, when they’d started sleeping together, it’d become all about looking after Jack, because the man would always put everyone else before himself, try to carry all the burden alone. Ianto had tried to share some of that with him, or at least made sure he knew he had a safe place to retreat to when he couldn’t.

But now, it was hard to tell what Jack might be thinking, simply because there was a thousand years and countless lifetimes worth of lost memories standing between them.

He stood, reaching for the empty cups, deciding the kitchen and a few soap suds would soon settle him. “I’ll just tidy these up—”

“Leave it.” Jack came around the table and took the cups away from him to set them back on the table. “Someone else will pick them up later. Like I said, job starting tomorrow.”

“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” He hated sitting idle, especially when there were too many things he didn’t want to think about. Keeping busy had always been his answer to everything. Especially when he needed the distraction.

“How about I show you to your quarters, then you can decide. Watch a movie, take a shower, have a nap. You fell through the rift less than two hours ago, and while you might have the advantage of understanding what that means, it can still mess with your head.”

“Okay.” He didn’t like the sound of being left to his own devices, but what else was he going to do? Maybe he could check how many James Bond movies had been made after he’d died in 2009. Had to be a few… that was assuming he could access movies from a thousand years ago. All those Sunday afternoons he and Jack had never gotten to spend together. It’d been one of their favourite things to do. And suddenly that tiny little detail was the thing that made it all hit home.

“Wow,” he uttered as he followed Jack out of the conference room.

“What is it?” Jack asked over his shoulder as he led him around the base of the rift monitor, through another door and to an elevator.

“I died. Like, I actually died. You went on without me. You and Gwen, and all the James Bond movies.”

Jack arched an eyebrow at him. “James Bond?”

He smiled, remembering Jack making fun of him about his James Bond addiction, even back then. “Whenever we could, if we got a quiet Sunday afternoon, we used to spend it on the couch at my flat watching movies.”

Jack turned to face him. “Listen, I’m going to need all those memories. I know it’s going to be difficult, and maybe a little awkward. But eventually I need you to tell me anything you can think of that you knew about me back then. Any little detail I might have told you.”

He took in Jack’s expression. He was trying to down play it, but Ianto could see the strain those missing memories had taken on him.

“Of course, I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he murmured in reply, making sure Jack could see he wasn’t taking it lightly.

“Thank you.” Jack took a shallow breath as the lift chimed and the doors opened.

They stepped out into a corridor that kind of looked like it belonged in a hotel.

“This is basically the accommodation level. Tosh, Gwen and I all have suites, though technically Tosh and Gwen don’t sleep, they recharge. Noah and Lucas have rooms, but they only use them occasionally—they’ve both got homes down on Mars. I think Lucas is seeing someone, but he hasn’t talked much about it. We also have a few spares for when we get people passing through.”

Jack stopped in front of a door and swiped his hand over a palm-sized screen where the doorhandle should have been. The door slid open to reveal a kind of sitting room with windows overlooking the planet below. If Jack hadn’t already told him it was Mars, he would have thought it was Earth. It was all shiny, gleaming atmosphere, white clouds, blue ocean and patchy coloured landmass.

To the left was a small kitchen, while the right had a short corridor, which Jack pointed out had a bedroom and bathroom.

“It’s not first class, but we make do.” Jack stopped in the middle of the room and stood with his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks, it’ll be fine,” he replied, more as an automatic response rather than any given thought on whether or not it actually would be.

They stared at each other for a long moment, that unreadable expression firmly set on Jacks’ features. He couldn’t help thinking that if this was 2009, if this was the Jack he’d known, they’d already have left a trail of clothes between the door and the bedroom and right now be trying to decide who got to do what first.

His heart gave a painful pang in his chest, because Jack had lost his memories, but he’d lost the Jack he’d loved. Left him standing devastated and heartbroken outside the pub in 2009. And it suddenly occurred to him, what was Jack going to say if he did get his memories back and remembered Ianto tricking him into leaving? Promising him they could be together but then betraying him to close the rift? What if Jack never forgave him for it?

“You know, that kip sounds like a good idea after all,” he said, voice slightly rough. He tore his gaze away from Jack to look toward the bedroom.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it.”

Jack started to walk out, but Ianto’s guilt was suddenly getting the better of him.

“Jack.”

He paused just before he went through the door to look back at him with a questioning expression on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, unable to hide the emotion in his voice, even though Jack would have no idea what he was apologising for.

Jack nodded, clearly a little confused and probably a lot curious. “Get some rest, we’ll talk later.”

The door slid closed behind him and Ianto went over to sit on the couch, slouching down to stare up at the ceiling.

“Bloody hell,” he said into the empty room.


	5. Chapter 5

Contrary to his worry about being left to his own devices, Ianto ended up passing the time and keep himself somewhat distracted from overthinking everything that’d happened to him.

He took a long, hot shower, the warm water rushing over his skin sending shivers through his body, like he’d forgotten how good something so simple could feel. And maybe he had. He’d been dead for six months, and then for all he knew, he’d spent over a thousand years in the rift, as mind-boggling as that fact might be. When he’d finally emerged from the shower, he’d frowned at himself in the mirror over the fact he hadn’t the forethought that he might want clean clothes after washing.

He wrapped a towel around his hips and headed out to the main room, deciding to look for a phone or an intercom of some sort. He could call Tosh or Gwen and ask them to bring something down for him, he was sure they wouldn’t mind.

But when he stepped out into the room, he found a number of garments bags draped over the arm of the couch, plus an assorted stack of basic pants, t-shirts and socks on the coffee table. He wanted to think Tosh had efficiently organised the clothes for him—it was something she’d have the thoughtfulness to do. But for some reason, he got the feeling Jack had been responsible for supplying the wardrobe.

He unzipped a few of the garment bags, checking over the suits. The materials all seemed expensive and lines very fine, but he didn’t pull any out to examine closely. Instead he left them where they were and went to the coffee table. A pair of jeans and casual white button shirt would do him for the rest of the day. Like a uniform, he’d put a suit on in the morning once he’d had a good night sleep and was ready to start work.

It was almost too surreal, the fact that he was going to get up and go to work tomorrow like nothing had happened. Would this be it, then? He’d be a butler on a space station for Torwood until the job managed to kill him again? Working for Torchwood in 2009 had been dangerous enough. Now it was an outlawed organisation—the ramifications of which he didn’t even understand in this time period.

But he couldn’t go back, could he? He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. Wanted to throw himself back through the rift on the slim chance that the Jack he’d left back in 2009 would be there waiting for him. That he could fall into his arms, hug him close until the tight, slightly panicked feeling that’d permanently lodged into his chest melted away.

And this was exactly what he’d been wanting to avoid in being left alone with nothing to do. Letting the jumble of thoughts he couldn’t do anything about spin around his mind like an out of control carousel.

Well, he never did get to make that coffee. And though Noah’s had been passable, he hadn’t drunk it all. Plus, he was still trying to get his head around the whole Tosh and Gwen thing.

Back up in the hub—or the hub look-alike anyway—the Torchwood team were hard at work, though Jack was nowhere to be seen. He was both disappointed and relieved in the same instance. Disappointed because even being around a Jack who didn’t remember him was better than no Jack—somehow things always seemed brighter and more vibrant whenever Jack was in a room. But he was also relieved because he needed to come to terms with the fact that Jack had no idea who he was.

No one paid any notice to him as he took himself over to the coffee machine and then spent a few minutes rearranging things the way he preferred. He figured he might as well, since as of tomorrow, this would be his domain once again. The coffee machine was a little more advanced than the old fashioned one they’d had at Torchwood three, but not impossible to figure out. Once he’d fixed himself a cup, he went over to where Gwen and Tosh were occupied at separate stations a few feet apart from each other.

Tosh glanced at him with a smile as he pulled a chair over to sit down.

“How are you feeling, Ianto?” she asked in that extra-caring way only Tosh had ever managed to pull off.

“All things considered, I’m feeling quite well,” he replied before sipping his coffee. The heat and taste of it was like a balm on the frayed edges of his nerves. It’d definitely been too long since he’d enjoyed a cup.

Tosh made a humming kind of noise, expression creasing, and turned back to her workstation, fingers dancing across a kind of flat keyboard type thing.

“Did you have an ulterior motive for asking me that?” He leant a hint of amusement to the question, even though he was half serious.

“Not really, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t feeling anything unusual. The spike on the rift monitor from when you fell out was massive. One of the largest we’ve ever seen.”

Gwen leaned back in her chair, a hint of concern on her features. “What could it mean, Tosh?”

Tosh shrugged. “Maybe nothing. It might be something to do with how far in the past Ianto came from. I’m not sure. We lost so much data when the hub was destroyed on Earth and the rift split open past the point of being able to close it any longer. You know I’ve been working at reconstructing what I can, but it takes time.”

Gwen sent her a reassuring smile. “No worries, Tosh. I’m sure you’ll work it out. Jack restored you for a reason.”

“Well, let’s hope it wasn’t a waste of nano-tech.” Tosh focused determinedly on her screen, the same way she always had when she was set to solve a problem no matter what.

“Can I ask something?” Ianto asked, gaining Gwen’s attention at least, though he could tell Tosh was listening despite having her gaze focused on her screen.

“Anything, go ahead,” Gwen answered, sending him an encouraging smile.

“Jack doesn’t remember either of you, right? He said all his memories were gone.”

Gwen nodded, a little cautiously like she was worried where this conversation was headed.

“So why bring the two of you back? Out of all the people who must have worked for Torchwood over the last thousand years, he picked you two?”

If he was being honest, he was trying not to be jealous about it, trying not to be hurt, because he knew it was illogical. Jack hadn’t overlooked him on purpose, after all.

“Well, like Jack said when you got here, Tosh’s mind is brilliant, always was and still is,” Gwen said slowly. “He was looking for people who could help him with the rift and find out who took his memories and why.”

He shifted in his seat, not sure how to word his next question. “No offense, Gwen, but why were you his other choice?”

She smiled, a kind of fond, almost intimate smile and his heart kicked against the inside of his chest as him mind immediately took him to the one possibility he didn’t want to consider. That with him gone, Jack and Gwen had finally—

“Don’t you look at me like that, Ianto Jones.” Gwen pointed an admonishing finger at him. “I know what you’re thinking and that’s not what happened.”

“So what did happen?” he pressed, not sure whether he believed her or not. Though Gwen had married Rhys and Jack had quite obviously chosen him, he’d never quite escaped the shadow of the fact that there’d been something undefined between Jack and Gwen.

“It’s simple, really. I was lucky enough to be the longest serving member of Torchwood. No one before or after ever outlived me. Just lucky, I guess, that nothing ever got me. Died at the ripe old age of ninety-six, and Jack was there with me until the end. He restored me because he figured out of everyone, I’d have the most information about who he was and what he did over all those years.”

Ianto dropped his gaze to stare at his half-empty coffee. Gwen had gotten to spend an entire lifetime with Jack. Maybe nothing had ever happened between them, but Gwen had gotten time—years and days and months that he hadn’t gotten with Jack after he’d died from the virus the 456 aliens had released.

“Hey, you.” Gwen reached out and set a hand on his knee. “I know it’s hard to hear, and honestly it wasn’t exactly a Sunday blood picnic. That man is hard work. And after you died—well, I think it kind of broke him, Ianto, if we’re being honest. He was never really the same after. But look on the bright side. You’re here now, you’ve got another chance.”

“Except for the part where he doesn’t love me anymore because he doesn’t remember who I am.”

At this, Tosh tore her gaze away from the screen to send him a sympathetic look. “It was hard for both of us when Jack told us what had happened. So I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you.”

He wanted to ask why they’d never told Jack about him, but the words got stuck in his head and refused to come out. With Jack’s missing memories, he supposed a boyfriend who died a thousand years ago wasn’t going to be the first point of conversation.

“Jack might not have remembered you, but we did,” Gwen said in such a sincere, heartfelt tone, he couldn’t help but believe her.

“Then why—” Emotion cut off the rest of the words from coming out.

“Why didn’t we ever tell Jack about you?” Tosh finished correctly for him. “Jack has rules when it comes to his missing memories, and one of them is that he doesn’t want to know about the really personal things.”

He glanced between Tosh and Gwen, not quite able to get his head around that piece of Jack Harkness logic.

“He’ll never admit it,” Gwen continued from Tosh. “But I think he feels bad about it. He’s carrying all this guilt around and its easier for him to just focus on the fact that the memories are missing, not what he’s missing by not remembering, if that makes sense.”

Actually, it did. It made total sense, especially when it came to Jack and his way of dealing with things. Which only made him hurt more for what Jack was going through.

“Now that you’re here, though, I think Jack’s hoping you’ll be able to fill in some more blanks, tell him some things Tosh and I haven’t been able to,” Gwen finished.

“I doubt I know much more than the two of you.”

Gwen sent him a blatantly sceptical look. “Ianto, he loved you. I’m sure there were times he shared things with you that he wouldn’t have told anyone else.”

Unbidden, the memory returned of finding out that Jack had been keeping the secret of handing over twelve children to the 456 aliens back in the 1960’s, and then Jack admitting he had a daughter and grandson he’d never told any of them about, along with the heavy feeling he’d gotten in his stomach when he’d realized that despite how close they’d become, Jack had never truly opened up to him. Not fully.

“You might be surprised,” he muttered in reply.

“You know what we need?” Gwen suddenly announced. “Pizza and beer. Just like old times.”

He sent his coffee aside, because pizza and beer actually sounded amazing. “Except there’s no Owen, so who keeps the stash of beer around here?”

Tosh gave a fond laugh. “Owen had all sorts of things stashed around the hub. He thought no one knew about the chocolate he had hidden in those draws—”

“Next to Suzie’s old workstation,” both he and Gwen finished at the same time.

“Everyone knew about the chocolate stash,” Gwen laughed.

Ianto couldn’t help smiling. “One night Jack and I completely cleaned it out, then Jack went out at five am to find an open store to replace them all because he wanted to make sure Owen still thought it was a secret.”

Gwen laughed harder. “I did the same a few times myself when it was that time of the month and the sugar craving got me. It was like the worst kept secret in the hub.”

“Almost makes me wish he was here as well,” Ianto replied wistfully. The team back together. That’d be something.

“He could be!” Gwen jumped to her feet and Tosh looked up at her in alarm.

“Gwen, you don’t mean—”

“Well, Jack bloody restored us, so why not?” Gwen demanded. “Anyway, I keep telling him we need a doctor around here.”

Gwen was typing furiously at her workstation, a look of almost child-like glee on her face.

“So we’ll clear it with Jack when he gets back.”

“Nah! Let’s just do it.” Gwen finished typing and stood back from the computer. “Jack’ll get over it. Besides, what’s the worst he can do?”

Tosh stood as well as Gwen hurried away toward the medical area.

“He could decommission Owen. He could decommission us!” Tosh exclaimed, rushing after Gwen.

Ianto shoved to his feet and ran after them, still trying to wrap his head around the fact they were talking about bringing Owen back to life like it was a matter of ordering takeout.

Down in the medical bay, there was a chiming and one of the screens was flashing with the words _capsule 004 arrived from archive sb-delta-9_. Gwen pulled open one of the doors on the wall and rolled out some kind of cryo chamber. Ianto stopped at the top of the steps, looking down on them.

“Gwen, we can’t!” Tosh said, though she didn’t sound like she was even that sure herself.

“Come on, Tosh, don’t pretend like you wouldn’t be over the moon to have Owen back.”

“Well, yes.” Tosh was wringing her hands where she held her glasses. “But we really should talk to Jack—”

“It’s already done, Tosh.” Gwen stepped up to look into the cryo chamber.  

“What is that?” he asked as Tosh started checking readings, looking both terrified and excited.

“It’s a nano-skeleton. It’s what the hard-light projection is written over,” Tosh explained distractedly.

Okay, he wasn’t even going to pretend like he understood what that meant. And clearly now wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation. Another chiming sounded and the screen changed to say _nano hard-light projection complete_. Gwen shared a grin with Tosh and then stepped forward to press a series of buttons on top of the unit. It beeped and then whooshed open.

Two familiar looking hands appeared on the top edges and a second later, Owen sat up, gasping a breath a bit like Jack did when he came back from being dead.

“Bloody hell,” Owen stuttered. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Just close your eyes and think, it’ll come to you.” Tosh reached out and set a hand on Owen’s bare shoulder. He brought his own hand up to grip her fingers where they rested on him, his body shaking slightly.

Owen glanced at her and when she added a smile and reassuring nod, he did as she said and closed his eyes. After a long minute, his brow creased before his eyes snapped open again. He seemed to settle, taking a deeper breath as the trembling subsided.

“Well, Jesus Christ. Didn’t I go out in a blaze of glory?”

“You remember dying?” Ianto asked, causing Owen to look up at him.

Ianto still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, besides Gwen randomly deciding to bring their doctor back to life without Jack’s permission. But it seemed like Owen automatically knew he’d been artificially brought back and was completely fine with it. He supposed the knowledge of what would have otherwise been a startling fact could have been written into the programming easily enough. 

“Which time? Because, yeah, I remember both, and neither of them were exactly shits and giggles.” He tilted his head, like he was hearing something no one else could. “And now here I am, all hard light projection. If I had of known I’d get to come back and hang out with you lot a thousand years later, I might not have been so angry that second time around.”

He passed a look around them all and then sent them his typical smug grin. “Actually, scrap that. Pretty sure I would have been pissed as hell if someone had told me my afterlife was basically Torchwood for eternity.”

“Go on, you.” Gwen laughed and shoved him lightly in the shoulder.

“So.” Owen clapped his hands together enthusiastically. Or, as close to enthusiastic as Owen ever got, anyway. “The old team is back together. Where’s that handsome bastard we call out boss?”


	6. Chapter 6

It was mid-morning the following day before Jack took himself back to the Archives station. After leaving a decent set of clothing in the suite for their new guest, he’d gone down to his office and pulled up all the electronic files Torchwood had on Ianto Jones, then gone into the physical archives for the few paper copies that’d been recovered when the hub at what had once been Torchwood three in Cardiff had been destroyed in the massive rift storm that’d been the beginning of the end for Earth, and caused Torchwood to become an outlawed organisation.

He’d taken them all with him and headed down to Mars, since there’d also been a few things he’d meant to follow up on earlier in the day, before they’d got the rift alert and Ianto had fallen through. By the time those things had been taken care of, it’d been late, so he’d found himself a bar, ordered a whiskey neat and sat down to read everything he had on Ianto Jones.

And it had made for one heck of a read. Torchwood London and Canary Warf. Ianto’s girlfriend Lisa hidden at the hub until she’d nearly killed them all. After, Ianto had taken a more active role with the team, and true to what he’d wondered, it seemed Ianto could handle himself quite well when the need arose. From his personal notes, he couldn’t fail to see the underlying affection he’d had for the young man. He wondered when and how they’d gotten together. It was obvious from some of the asides he’d written in many of the reports later on that he’d come to care deeply for Ianto. By his own accounts, had loved him to distraction until the ill-fated mission to Thames House when the 456 aliens had tried to take ten per cent of the world’s children.

After Ianto had died, it seemed maybe he hadn’t taken it well. The report on the incident was a single page, sparse in detail, creased as though it had been crumpled up at some stage and then eventually smoothed out again. It had water marks on it, and Jack could only guess they were either tears or alcohol. His hand had clearly been shaking when he’d filled out the form, his usual neat writing an uneven mess. And it had ended abruptly with the words _I can’t stay here any longer_.

The evidence of the short tumultuous relationship that’d ended tragically had left his chest aching. He’d put everything away again, his stomach feeling like it was full of rocks. Part of him thought that in this instance, maybe not remembering was a blessing. Not remembering Ianto dying, anyway. But the rest—

He lived with a constant frustration simmering in the back of his mind over the fact that his entire life was gone and he’d had to learn all the details second hand, with no reference of personal feeling, like those things had happened to someone else. But faced with his missing memories of loving Ianto, the frustration burned white hot into an impotent rage. And the worst part was he had nowhere to direct the wrath. No idea who he was supposed to be furious with, no idea who he was meant to take his driving urge for revenge out on. And this—this feeling, this sense of being broken and spinning out of control—this was why he’d never wanted to know about the people he’d loved.

He’d spent the rest of the night throwing back whiskey. Not enough to get him drunk, just enough to take the edge off the fury. Just before dawn, he’d gone out and watched the sunrise, then spent a few hours wandering aimlessly around the city as the whiskey had worn off.

Eventually though, he’d settled himself enough to return to the Archives. His mood was still on the dark side, but at least it didn’t feel like the rage was physically festering in his guts.

When he walked into the hub, Tosh was at her workstation like usual, Gwen leaning on the desk next to her. Lucas was over at his bench tinkering with some kind of robotics, while Noah and Ianto were nowhere to be seen. The pleasant scent of coffee hung in the air, however, somehow smelling different to usual.

“Morning,” he called out to them, getting the usual response.

“Where’s Ianto and Noah?” he asked, trying to sound causal as he ducked into his office and hung his coat on the stand.

“Down in the med area,” Gwen responded. He paused and looked at her, since there was something a little odd in her tone. Tosh looked tense and Gwen was clearly avoiding his gaze.

“What happened?” he demanded, crossing his arms.

Tosh glanced up at Gwen, deep worry crossing her features, but Gwen was determinedly looking nonchalant.

“Nothing to be concerned about, Jack,” Gwen eventually replied, a hint of amusement in her voice like she was waiting to spring some kind of prank on him. Why did he get the feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever was going on with the pair? Unfortunately, short of yelling, he probably couldn’t get Gwen to tell him anything until she was good and ready. That was the problem with someone who’d spent seventy years with him. She pretty much knew all his moves and could handle him before he even knew what she was up to.

He shook his head at them, causing Tosh to look guilty, while Gwen just sent him a bland smile.

“I’m going to check on Ianto. When I get back, we’re going to have a conversation,” he told them in a firm voice.

“Of course, Jack, whatever you say,” Gwen agreed a little too easily.

Feeling like he’d ended up on the back foot somehow, he crossed by their workstations and went to the archway opening onto the mezzanine that ran around the top of the medical bay. Except before he could put even one boot on the stairs leading down, he pulled to a halt at the sight of a man in a white doctor’s coat with colourful buttons attached talking to Ianto, who was sitting shirtless on the examination table. Noah was perched on a wheeled stool nearby, slowly rotating himself back and forth as he listened to whatever the pair were talking about.

“What the hell is going on here?” His demand was only a decibel under an outright bellow, causing everyone to freeze and look up at him. 

“And hello to you too. Jack,” the man said with a half-grin.

Gwen and Tosh had come forward, but Tosh hung back a few steps, clearly anxious, while Gwen came over to stand next to him, bumping her shoulder into his.

“We decided that since Ianto arrived, we might as well get the old team back together. Jack, this is Doctor Owen Harper.”

“You did _what_?” He sent Gwen a disbelieving glare.

“Clearly you needed me, Jack,” Owen announced, turning his attention to the nearby screen that was running some kind of analysis. “I mean, poor Ianto here fell a thousand years through the rift after being dead for six months and then resurrected by some kind of ancient evil being and you didn’t think maybe he needed a full medical workup?”

Momentarily distracted by the thought that something might be wrong with Ianto, he quickly descended the stairs, running a worried gaze over him, looking for any signs he wasn’t a hundred percent healthy.

“Is he okay?” He stopped next to the examination table and when he caught Ianto’s blue eyes, damn if his heart didn’t skip a beat.

“He’s fine,” Owen said. “Better than fine. In perfect health, considering he should be dead and back in 2009.”

Jack blew out a quick, uneven breath, surprised at how the idea of anything being wrong with Ianto had scared him.

He turned to look up at Gwen with a frown. “There are protocols in place—”

“You and your bloody protocols, Jack,” Gwen huffed as she came down the stairs. “You used to be a lot more fun.”

“Yeah, well I also used to have my memories.”

Ianto cut him a faintly sympathetic look, but Gwen pretty much waved off his words.

“And you’ve had fifty years to come to terms with the fact they’re gone. When are you going to face the truth that you might not get them back?”

“Gwen—” Ianto’s voice held a note of warning as he slid down from the examination table to stand.

Jack held up a hand to stop him saying anything else.

“You think I haven’t?” he demanded heatedly. “You can’t even begin to imagine—”

She came closer and set her hands on his upper arms. “No, I can’t. I don’t know what it’s like to have nothing where your memories used to be. But I do know that eventually you need to find a way to heal. And now that Ianto is here, now that Owen is back as well, we can all help you do that.”

Emotion tightened his chest as he looked around at them all. Lucas had also come over to see what the commotion was about, standing next to Tosh on the upper level. For the first time in fifty years, he finally felt like there was solid ground beneath his feet.

“You can’t expect me to just give up,” he said in an uneven voice as he returned his attention to Gwen in front of him.

“No, we’d never ask that, and we won’t give up either,” Gwen assured him with a tender smile.

“If your memories are out there somewhere, then Torchwood Three Rebooted will find them,” Owen put in.

Ianto sent Owen an exasperated scowl. “We are not calling ourselves Torchwood Three Rebooted.”

Owen grinned at him. “You’re not the only one who gets to come up with cool names for things, teaboy.”

Jack took a calming breath. He was annoyed that Gwen had done this without talking to him first, but there was definitely something comforting about having the four of them together. A familiarity his emotions recalled that his mind couldn’t.

“For record you should have run it by me first.” He pointed an admonishing finger at Gwen, but she simply grinned back at him, clearly knowing she’d been let off the hook. “Owen is it. No more restoring ex-Torchwood agents unless I say so.”

“We don’t need anyone else.” Gwen stepped sideways and slung one arm around Owen and the other around Ianto, jostling them both. “The universe better watch out because Torchwood three is back!”

Owen sent her a flat look while Ianto discreetly disentangled himself and then reached for his shirt.

“Stow the enthusiasm, Cooper.” Owen picked up her arm and unwound it from his shoulder. “I might have all parts in working order again, but there’s no way—”

She shoved him with a look that was half exasperated, half insulted. “Trust you and your filthy mind to go there, Owen Harper!”

Owen grinned in a way that suggested he hadn’t really meant it and that it’d been more about winding Gwen up than anything else.

“Are you done with the tests, Owen?” Ianto asked, slipping his arms into his shirt.

“All good to go. I might run another series of scans in a few hours, just to make sure there aren’t any changes.” Owen braced a hand against the desk as he studied the computer screen. “I tell you what though, this equipment is bloody brilliant. Makes three quartes of my job obsolete, but shit, it’s amazing.”

“Well then, how about we give you and the equipment some alone time,” Jack replied glancing around at the rest of them. Looks like he had another Torchwood personnel file to read so he could catch himself up on who Owen Harper was. “Everyone back to work.”

Gwen patted his shoulder with a happy expression as she followed Noah upstairs, while Tosh and Lucas disappeared back toward their workstations.

Ianto was in the midst of doing up his tie, having buttoned up and tucked in his pale purple shirt. He wore black pressed pants and a matching jacket was draped across the back of a nearby chair.

Jack stepped forward and reached up with a questioning look. Ianto released the tie and Jack took over, fashioning the knot for him.

“Feel like getting out of here?” he asked in a low voice.

Ianto glanced at Owen a few steps away, but he was clearly taken by his new toys.

“And go where exactly?” Ianto finally responded, seeming a little unsure.

“Down to Mars. It’s been twenty-four hours; the rift energy on you will have faded away by now. Thought you might like to see some sights.”

Ianto looked around, like maybe he was thinking about refusing and Jack found himself holding his breath. There were so many things he wanted to ask Ianto, and deep within him there was an underlying need to get to know Ianto again that he didn’t want to examine too closely. However, he also wanted to give Ianto a chance to acclimatize to the fact he wasn’t dead any longer and had arrived through the rift a thousand years in the future where things were very different. For Gwen, Tosh and Owen, knowledge and acceptance of the fact that they were reanimated nano hard light projections was written into their programming, so he didn’t need to worry about their state of mind the same way he did with Ianto, who was still very much human.

If Ianto refused to go or came up with an excuse, he’d be disappointed, but he’d make like it was no big deal and try again later.

Finally, though, Ianto met his gaze and nodded. “I guess I have to go out eventually. Can’t spend the rest of my life hiding in the archives.”

Ianto gave a quick smile, though Jack could tell he was nervous. Probably not surprising considering he’d been chased and shot at a mere few minutes after dropping out of the rift and discovered Earth had been abandoned apart from the groups of tourists on the days when the government categorised rift activity as low.

“Don’t worry,” Jack sent him a cheeky grin. “We’ll avoid the strip clubs and sex bars.”

“Did you say _sex_ bars?” Owen asked, proving that he’d been eavesdropping after all.

Jack laughed. “You’ve got no idea the kinds of predilections the thirty-first century has to offer.”

“You know,” Owen replied in thoughtful voice. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

“Well, I’m glad one of us is sure at least,” Ianto said in a dryly as he gathered his jacket off the back of the chair.


	7. Chapter 7

The trip down to Mars didn’t take more than a few minutes, with Jack pointing out things here and there, while Ianto made mono-syllabic responses simply so he wasn’t sitting in silence and giving Jack the impression he was ignoring him.

It’d been both comforting and surreal, waking up that morning, shaving and dressing in a crisp suit, then heading up to the hub where Gwen, Tosh and Owen had already been present, catching up on the whole Jack-and-his-stolen-memories thing, and whatever else Owen had missed since Tosh and Gwen had been reanimated longer. Owen had assumed Ianto was a hard light projection as well, until nearly mid-morning when Gwen had off-handedly mentioned him falling through the rift the day before. Owen had gone right into doctor mode, hustling him down to his reclaimed medical area to give him a full work up.

Which was when Jack had finally decided to reappear. Gwen and Tosh had informed him earlier in the morning that Jack had gotten even better at his disappearing-without-a-word routine. Often, he was just gone for an hour or two, following up cases or leads on his memories. But there had been times when he’d disappeared for days at a time, leaving them with no clue what he was up to.

Tosh had told him Gwen always took him to task over it, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. The man was keeping himself determinedly distant from everyone and everything. Ianto could see it for the coping mechanism it was, but that didn’t mean he knew what to do about it. He hadn’t back in 2009 when Jack had found his Doctor and left with no warning, and he certainly didn’t know what to do about it now. Or even if he had the right to try to do anything about it, even though both Tosh and Gwen had seemed to be hinting exactly that.

Jack set the shuttle down in what seemed to be like a shuttle and/or flying-car parking lot and then turned to look at him.

“Welcome to New Cardiff,” Jack said with one of his signature beaming grins.

“You’re joking.”

“Not in the least. Lots of cities got the _new_ treatment here on Mars. New London. New Amerstdam. New New York. New Sydney. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture.”

“Very original. The human race didn’t lose its sentimentality then.”

“Less sentimentality, more a kind of renaissance trend at the time for classic early-tech Earth. People really romanticized the twenty-first century once they forgot all the bad stuff that happened.”

Yet another thing he had to wrap his head around; the fact that his time—where he was born and grew up—was now considered distant history. He couldn’t help but wonder what had become of his mum. Of his sister and her kids. They must have been devastated when he’d died. He wondered if Jack had been the one to go see them. It wasn’t really his style. He never did cope well with the really horrible, painful stuff. More than likely, he’d sent Gwen to tell them. Had his niece and nephew gone on to have their own kids? Were his distant relatives out there in the universe somewhere? Or even living her on Mars in New Cardiff?

It was all starting to feel like some crazy dream. One that he couldn’t wake up from. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had died and now this was his hell. Jack forgetting him had always been one of his biggest fears.

“So, should we go have an early lunch?” Jack suggested, seeming to be in a better mood now than he had been when he’d returned to find Gwen had restored Owen to Torchwood. “Or maybe you’d like to go to a store and pick out some clothes for yourself? Torchwood might be outlawed, but our finances have never been healthier. Wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Running an outfit like Torchwood with no money is so passé. We need our toys. Ianto? Are you alright?”

He shook his head, dispelling the dark thoughts, and glanced up at Jack. “Yup. Sorry, fine. Just processing things, really.”

Jack sent him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anyone. “You’re not much of a liar, are you? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but if something’s bothering you, at least talk to Gwen or Tosh, or that Owen guy.”

Jack calling the doctor he’d personally selected and spent years working with _that Owen guy_ broke up the dark clouds and left him laughing lightly with amusement.

“Owen and I never exactly had the kind of friendship where we could sit down with a beer and have a deep and meaningful. Tosh, I spoke to occasionally, because she always took the time to really listen and understand. Gwen and I became closer once Tosh and Owen died, there was no choice about that, really. Honestly, I was never much of a talker, but when I did have something I needed to get off my chest I usually—”

He broke off as the memory of the last serious conversation he and Jack had exchanged surfaced in his mind. When he’d begged Jack to talk to him, to let him in, and Jack had tersely told him about his daughter and grandson being held hostage before storming off to deal with it by himself.

Apparently, their sharing had been a one-way street, even though he’d been completely blind to it until the truth had come out about Jack’s actions with the 456 aliens and the kids back in the 1960’s. The stories Jack had told him were obviously the sanitized ones he’d picked to keep things from getting too dark.

“You used to come to me,” Jack finished for him, that unreadable expression settling over his features again. Ianto was quickly coming to hate that expression.

“I didn’t always tell you everything.” His snapped reply was undeniably defensive. But it was true enough, he’d fudge his past—what his father had done for a living and how he’d grown up. But that had been more about his own insecurities than anything to do with Jack.

Jack glanced away, hand clenching where it rested on his knee. “I’m sorry, Ianto. I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I’m sorry I’m not the same man I was back then. I know this isn’t easy for either of us. But I need your help. And it’s hard for me to admit that—”

“No, I’m sorry,” he cut in before Jack could go on. None of this was his fault. And some of his anger was stemming from fear of the unknown. He’d come to the conclusion that he couldn’t go back to 2009, but he very definitely didn’t belong here. So where did that leave him? Plus, he was dreading that if he was around when Jack did get those memories back and he remembered Ianto telling him what he wanted to hear in order to get him out of the pub where he’d been resurrected to close the rift, then Jack might end up hating him. “I’ll help you if I can, Jack. Whatever you need to know. But can we do it over coffee and some kind of pastries? Plus, now I want to go see if New Cardiff is anything like old Cardiff.”

“They rebuilt the castle, you know.” Jack’s smile said all was forgiven, though it was a little strained around the edges. “And I know just the place for coffee and pastries.”

They left the shuttle and stepped out into a drizzly morning.

“Well, they got the weather part right,” he grumbled as a few stray drips found their way down the back of his neck.

“Here.” Jack was holding what looked like a blue umbrella without a handle. When he popped it up, it hovered on its own into the air to float above them, blocking the rain.

“If it has no handle to hold, what stops it from blowing away?” he asked as Jack set a hand in the middle of his lower back and they stepped away from the shuttle.

“You know, I’ve never actually thought to ask.” Jack gave a short laugh. “It’s amazing what kind of technology you take for granted without ever stopping to wonder how it actually works.”

Jack hadn’t removed his hand from Ianto’s lower back as they strode out onto a footpath, and Ianto found he didn’t want to say anything about it. Their shoulders were brushing as they walked close together, keeping under the shelter of the umbrella. A number of other people had hovering umbrellas, and the sight of them bobbing and weaving all up and down the drizzly street like jelly-fish was really quite amazing.

They ventured a few blocks in silence and then turned onto a street that snaked along a wide river which opened into an estuary in the distance.

A strange kind of humming zoomed somewhere above them and he looked up, trying to see around their umbrella.

“What was that?” he asked.

The rain had stopped and Jack reached up to put down the umbrella. “It’s one of many drones that monitor the city. All cities, actually. Anywhere there’s people, you’ll find the drones. Welcome to big brother in the 31st century.”

“What are they for?” He could see it clearly, zipping back and forth above the people walking along the street, who paid it absolutely no attention.

“Mostly to deter crime. But they’re connected to all kinds of databases. If you’re a wanted person and get scanned by one of those things, then you’re pretty much done for. There’s no escaping once they’ve electronically tagged you.”

He hesitated and Jack stopped to look back at him.

“But you said Torchwood is outlawed, what if it scans you?”

Jack sent him a half smile and touched the side of his nose. “Torchwood is outlawed, but I’m not a wanted criminal. At least not this week. Come on, we’ll be fine. The café is on the next block.”

They set off again, and he watched the drone. They were on intersecting paths with the device. By the time they reached the next shop front, it was hovering over the people in front of them. The thing was making Ianto unaccountably nervous. It wasn’t very big, no larger than a soccer ball with slightly protruding instruments that did who-knew what.

He determinedly glanced away from it, focusing ahead as the drone passed over them, taking a cue from Jack who’d already told him they didn’t need to worry.

Except the drone let out a sudden screeching noise like a siren that made Jack pause and look up.

The drone dropped to hover right in front of them, a kind of red laser flickering over them as it seemed to be running some kind of scan. People were scurrying away from them in all directions, clearing the area alarmingly fast, which only freaked him out more.

“Jack?” His heart was pounding hard enough to make him light headed.

“Just hold still,” Jack replied in a tight voice.

Bloody Jack. Obviously, he was on some kind of database somewhere that’d tripped some kind of warning in the drone. The question was, what the hell was going to happen next?

“You have scanned positive for high levels of rift energy.” The voice emanating from the drone was jarringly pleasant and polite. “Please standby and wait to be apprehended by the relevant authority forces.”

“What the hell?” muttered Jack. He brought his arm up and flicked the cover off his wrist strap, aiming it at Ianto and performing his own scan.

“Hell, that thing is right. You’re lit up with rift energy like a damned sun going supernova.”

“I thought you said the rift energy would wear off,” he said through a tight jaw, not taking his eyes of the drone still hovering in front of them. Was it loaded with any kinds of weapons? What would happen if they tried to make a run for it?

“I did say that. And it usually does. I didn’t even think to check. It must have something to do with how far back in time you came from—”

“As fascinating as I’m sure that is, can we maybe talk about it later while we’re not being bailed up by some flying soccer ball and waiting to be apprehend by I don’t-even-know-who.”

“You’re right.” Jack set a hand on his shoulder, glancing around. People had retreated to what they obviously considered to be a safe distance and were now standing around gawking at them. “It won’t be easy, but that thing is just a glorified space-age mall cop. We should be able to lose it and get back to the shuttle.”

“ _Should_?” he repeated. “Well, doesn’t that just fill me up with confidence.”

Jack eased in front of him, setting his back to Ianto’s chest and slowly urging him backward. They managed to put a few feet between them and the drone before it buzzed forward to catch up with them.

“Please do not attempt to evade being apprehend, or injunctive action will be taken against you.” The droid chirped in a cheerful voice.

Jack wasn’t deterred though. He backed them up a few more steps. “There’s an alley just behind us. When I say go, we’re going to make a run for it.”

He nodded, swallowing against the apprehension in the back of his throat.

Another few steps and the droid caught up with them again. “This is your final warning. Please do not move again. Injunctive action will be taken to ensure your cooperation.”

“What does that mean?” Ianto demanded in a low voice.

Despite the warning, Jack was still easing them back, albeit more slowly now.

“It means—”

Jack didn’t finish as the droid suddenly gave another screeching wail of sirens and then something shot out from the bottom of it to smack into Ianto’s neck, like getting hit by a small projectile.

“What was that?” He cupped his hand over the spot that was now throbbing slightly.

“Electronic tagging. Don’t worry, the signal will be shielded once we get on the shuttle.”

“And what about until we reach the shuttle?” He could see in his peripheral vision where the shadowed alley Jack had been talking about opened onto the street.

“Until we reach the shuttle, they can track your every move.” Jack added a shrug to his words like it was no big deal.

“Great, just what I always wanted. To be microchipped like a pet who’s given to wandering.”

“Ianto, run!” Jack jerked him into motion, almost pulling him off his feet.

He spun and stumbled after Jack, launching into a sprint down the alleyway, dodging rubbish bins, and other discarded things he couldn’t identify. Similar to any number of alleys he’d run down chasing weevils over his years working for Torchwood back in the original Cardiff.

The drone was coming after them with an angry blare of alarms, which contrasted discordantly with the pleasant voice asking them to stop and surrender.

They reached the end of the alley and Jack skipped left, dodging people now that they’d emerged on a busier street. People started screaming and running in all directions, causing chaos, surrounding them in a microburst of pandemonium. A few people got in between them, but Jack seemed to know exactly where he was. He shoved a couple of guys out of the way and then grabbed his hand, tightly closing his fingers around his. They resumed their run, but other sirens in the distance could now be heard over the noise the drone was making, definitely closing in on their position.

“Jack, are we going to make it?” he got out between panting breathes—more due to the fear of getting captured than the short distance they’d run so far. Jack had said _you don’t want to know what they do to the beings who fall through the rift_ when talking about the ones the government had gotten to before Torchwood could rescue them. And he really didn’t want to find out. Not firsthand anyway.

Jack didn’t answer, shoving people from his path and shouting at them to _move_ when they didn’t get out of his way fast enough.

 “Jack!” The way he yelled Jack’s name was an unmistakable demand and when Jack glanced back at him, Ianto could see it in his expression. They probably weren’t going to make it, but Jack was going to do everything in his power to try.

They rounded a corner onto the next block, and it was like someone had got there before them and evacuated the area. It was completely empty, not a soul in sight. Jack sped up now that the way was clear, but they weren’t even halfway along when the drone did the one thing he’d been fearing; it opened fire with some kind of weapon.

They heard it first; a kind of clicking noise he didn’t immediately recognize, but Jack apparently did. He skidded to a halt and clamped both hands on Ianto’s shoulder, yanking him around and putting himself in the line of fire.

Ianto couldn’t do anything but gasp in a half breath as Jack took three shots to the middle of his back and then collapsed forward into his arms. He took Jack’s weight and lowered them both to the ground as the drone buzzed around and then paused to hover just above them.

Jack was gasping for air, staring up at him with desperation. “Ianto, you have to run. You can’t let them take you.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “I’m not leaving you. Besides, I don’t know how to fly the bloody shuttle.”

Jack coughed violently and then took his hand in a grip tight enough to hurt. “There’s an emergency beacon. Big orange button, you can’t miss it. Hit that and Gwen or one of the other will come and get you.”

His breath was getting shorter and shallower, while he struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Jack, you’re dying. I’m not leaving you like this.”

“I’ll come back,” Jack wheezed as his eyes slid shut. “I’ll be fine. Run, Ianto, please.”

There was no point in replying as Jack gave a final ragged exhale and then fell still.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack came around to pain rippling through his body; the aftereffects of whatever injury he’d sustained. He gasped a long breath, becoming instantly aware of a pair of strong arms around him, holding him securely, soothing the usual jolting shock of being ripped back into life as violently as he’d left it. He grabbed on, anchoring himself, blindly, instinctively needing that security.

There was something achingly familiar about it all, the bittersweet comfort of it bringing tears, making his eyes sting for a moment. He blinked, looking up to see Ianto staring down at him. For a second, a kaleidoscope of images and feelings surged through his mind and body like a tsunami, but he couldn’t make sense of any of it, and it was all gone before he could grab hold of it. But like the dark, damp imprint of a wave after it’d retreated from the sand, the impression on his heart was unmistakable.

“Ianto?” his voice came out hoarse, and he grimaced as an echo of pain radiated from his back.

“I’ve got you,” Ianto murmured protectively adjusting his hold, bringing him in tighter.

Except then the last few minutes hit him with all the finesse of a sledge hammer. The drone and the rift energy all over Ianto like a bright, pulsing beacon and the government coming to take him away.

Oh God, the things they’d do to him.

“Ianto, I told you to run.” He rolled out of Ianto’s hold and stumbled to his feet.

Ianto got up more slowly, turning his attention to the drone hovering nearby. “They would have taken you instead, Jack, and maybe you don’t remember me, but I can tell you right now, I couldn’t ever stand back and let that happen.”

“Then you’re a damned fool,” he snapped, most of his anger stemming from fear over what was going to happen to Ianto if they didn’t get away. “Come on.”

He roughly grabbed Ianto’s arm and pulled him back into a run, even though his back and chest were still aching and he was having trouble breathing properly. The drone came after them, of course, but he ignored it as they reached the end of the block.

Only to be confronted by black government vehicles and a dozen armed men.

“Stop where you are! Get on your knees!” someone yelled at them.

Jack back tracked, turning to run in the other direction, but was faced with another dozen soldiers closing in from behind.

“No, damn it!” They were roughly grabbed and pulled apart. “Ianto!”

Ianto struggled against the men holding him, but they pushed him down to the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back.

Fury and fear spurred Jack into reckless action, and he fought viciously against the two men holding him. He managed to shake them off, but hadn’t taken more than a step before someone pointed a gun at him point-blank range and shot him in the head.  

***

This time when Jack came around, he was cold and naked on a hard table in a chilly room.

“Not again,” he groaned, rolling off the table and groggily shoving the sheet aside. At least he hadn’t come around to a screamimg medical examiner in desperate need of retconning. Waking up in a morgue was the worst. It’d happened maybe twenty times in the last fifty years. He wondered how many times it’d happened to him before he’d lost his memories. There was something really depressing about it, especially now he’d experienced the extreme opposite of waking up comforted in Ianto’s arms.

The thought of Ianto brought everything crashing back into his mind like an asteroid impact. Christ, he had to find Ianto before it was too late.

He rushed around the room, flinging open draws and throwing wide cupboard doors until he found his clothes in a plastic bag. He quickly dressed, then belatedly remembered to use his wrist strap to wipe the security tapes. It’d be another case of unsolved body snatching for his remains.

After that, he hurried out of the hospital and then had to get a taxi back to where he’d left the shuttle parked earlier. By the time he got back to the hub, it felt like boiling acid was running through his veins instead of blood.

“Gwen! Tosh!” he yelled as he burst through the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Tosh appeared first, eyes wide as she took in his dishevelled appearance.

“They’ve got Ianto.” He ran over to the nearest workstation—Gwen’s workstation—and started pounding at the keyboard.

“Whose got Ianto?” Tosh asked in an apprehensive voice as she stepped up next to him.

“The government. The Rift Management Agency.”

The RMA had several black sites, it was going to be a matter of working out which one Ianto had been taken to and how they were going to infiltrate it… Infiltrate? More like storm with weapons drawn the way he was feeling right now.

“But how? Why?” Tosh asked, sounding both concerned and confused. All the shouting had brought Owen up from his medical area, while Noah and Lucas appeared as well.

“He was still radiating massive amounts of rift energy. I don’t know why, and I’m an idiot for not checking before we left the Archives.”

Tosh set a hand on his shoulder. “Jack, you weren’t to know. That’s never happened before. Why would we have checked twice?”

“Well we can’t do anything about it now except get Ianto back before—” He couldn’t even finish the thought let alone the words. “Where’s Gwen?”

“She went back to Earth, she had a lead on that tourist who went missing,” Tosh answered. “It seems it might not have been the rift after all, but she wanted to be sure.”

“Lucas, call Gwen and get her back here. Noah, you’ve been working on the RMA cases. Have you got any idea which site they’re likely to take a high value capture to?”

Noah came forward, looking a little flustered, but took over at the keyboard after Jack moved aside.

“High value?” Tosh queried.

He glanced at her, letting his misgivings show in his expression. “The amount of rift energy coming off him was off the charts. They’ll want to lock him down and start studying him right away.”

“The spike,” she replied, almost absentmindedly, like she was running figures or scenarios though her mind as she was talking. “The rift spike from when Ianto fell out was the biggest we’ve ever recorded since the rift storm that destroyed the hub in Cardiff. I should have followed it up. This is all my fault—”

This time it was Jack’s turn to put a comforting hand on Tosh’s arm. “You just said it yourself, Tosh. We couldn’t have known.”

“Gwen is on her way back,” Lucas reported as he returned from where he’d stepped aside to call her.

“Good. Noah, what have you got for me?”  

“Okay, as you know, the RMA run half a dozen black sites, some are specially equipped to handle non-human life forms, some are like prisons where a lot of the people who’ve fallen out of the rift spend the rest of their lives, but a couple are for their special projects. For studying the rift itself and the effects it has on both individuals and the planet Earth, as well as time and space itself. I’m fairly sure there’s only one facility they’re likely to take Ianto.”

“Which is?” Jack demanded when Noah didn’t finish.

“The Kaursman Repository in the Dead Plains.”

Lucas gave a low whistle while Tosh paled. Jack clenched his jaw, stomach flipping over and over until he felt sick. The place was virtually impenetrable. There was nothing around it for miles and miles. Unlike the rest of Mars, for reasons that scientists had never been able to work out, the Dead Plains had failed to terraform. It was dusty and desolate. No water, toxic fumes, nothing but death and desolation. So of course the Rift Management Agency had decided it was the perfect place to set up one of their black sites. Most of the compound was underground. And in the past, anyone the RMA had taken in there had never come out.

This had all the hallmarks of a suicide mission. He looked at his team one by one. Restoring someone via the nano hard light projections only worked once. If anything happened to Gwen, Tosh or Owen, he wouldn’t be able to get them back again, the same as if they’d died all over again. Sure, he could bring back a shell of them in a simple hard light projection without the nano component, but it’d be like a ghost, a mere echo of what they were currently, who they had been. As for Noah and Lucas, they were both human, and dead was dead.

“I can’t ask any of you to come with me. I’m going in alone.”

Immediately they all started in with arguments about why they weren’t going to let him do that.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said loudly over all four of them. “You’d be risking your lives, and I’m not willing to put any of you in that kind of danger.”

“It’s not your choice, Jack,” Tosh spoke up in a firm voice.

Owen came over to stand at her side. “I know you don’t remember me, Jack, but let me give you the basics. I was a twat who basically did what I liked and often told you to shove it when I thought you were being a git. And there was no way I would ever let you go off on a mission like this and have all the fun without me. Besides, we don’t know what condition Ianto will be in by the time we get to him. He might need immediate medical attention.”

Jack swallowed as a lump of apprehension swelled in his throat at the thought of Ianto being tortured and experimented on.

“You’re right,” he replied in a hoarse voice.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you got on this long without me. I’ll go pack a bag.”

Owen didn’t wait for him to reply, but headed back down to the medical area.

“And before you say anything else,” Tosh immediately got in with. “If you’re planning on hacking into the Repository’s systems, then no one else will be able to do it except me.”

“You need someone to fly the shuttle,” Lucas added.

“And I’ve been working this case for almost a year. No one knows that facility and the RMA like I do,” Noah finished.

Jack had a heavy sensation in his stomach, a bad feeling that this wasn’t going to end well. But he couldn’t leave Ianto to the sociopaths who ran the RMA, and truth be told, this wasn’t something he could successfully accomplish on his own.

“Fine, we leave as soon as Gwen gets back.”

He stood back and watched as the team efficiently started organising themselves to go out on the mission. He only hoped to god that he wasn’t about to lead them all into disaster.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this chapter has a minor torture scene -- not graphic or explicit, but still may be difficult for some readers.

It had started off simple enough. First came the room. A fairly bare room with just a table and a couple of chairs. No windows, just some vents in the ceiling and what might have been a camera or something.

Then the man and the woman had appeared. Agent Colton and Agent Miller, they’d said. After that came the questions. Lots of questions. They knew Ianto had fallen through the rift, so where had he come from? How long did he think he’d been in the rift? What had he been doing right before the rift had taken him? Did he understand that he’d travelled through time?

He’d deflected and claimed confusion as much as he could. That the rift had scrambled his thoughts and he just didn’t know, didn’t remember. He got the feeling that if he told them so much as his name, that he’d worked for Torchwood and come from 2009, then things would have gotten a lot more unpleasant a lot sooner.

Not that avoiding all the questions had prevented things from getting unpleasant. Eventually Colton and Miller had gotten tired of the questions. They’d cuffed his hands and told him to come along. He’d thought maybe he’d won a reprieve, that they stick him in a cell and try the questions again later—after a bit of starvation or sleep deprivation.

Instead they’d shown him into some kind of lab with all kinds of advanced equipment that he didn’t want to know anything about.

The woman, Miller, had shrugged into a neat white lab coat while Colton had tugged him over to what looked like a kind of exo-skeleton and forced him into it. The thing clamped around his calves, forearms, torso and neck, keeping him almost completely immobile.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “What are you going to do? What is this thing?”

With each question, his voice had gotten louder, more panicked, but neither of them paid him any attention. Colton went over and sat on a stool, crossing his arms and looking like he was settling in to watch the bloody rugby. Meanwhile, Miller picked up what looked like some kind of futuristic iPad and started tapping on the screen. Around him, the exo-skeleton vibrated to life like there was electricity running through it.

“The amount of rift energy coming off him is amazing,” Miller said. “Its almost impossible to quantify. It’s like he’s part of the rift or something.”

“Part of the rift?” Colton repeated sceptically. “But he’s not, right?”

“No, he can’t be. I don’t think such a thing is possible. But for some reason, he’s soaked in more of it than I’ve ever seen existing outside of the rift itself. I can’t wait to see what we can do with it. I’ll run a basic quantum particle scan first.”

Ianto had been subtly flexing against the exo-skeleton, trying to figure out if it had any weak points, but suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck prickled a second before some kind of current erupted through his body, burning until every limb was aching. But that was nothing, apparently, because Miller turned up the setting, and that was when the pain really kicked in.

***

Ianto had no idea how much time had passed. He was slumped limp and exhausted in the exo-skeleton. Sweat and blood dripped down his bare chest. At some point, Miller had gotten up close and personal with him. She’d had Colton remove his shirt and then taken to him with a scalpel. He was sure they’d shoved him to the edge of death several times, but not actually killed him.

But it was worse, so much worse than that. It had gone on and on because Miller had made what she kept exclaiming to be a fascinating discovery. No matter what injuries they inflicted on him, within a matter of moments, his body would heal. Cuts, burns, bruises—they’d exacted them all on him in different ways in varying levels of severity, marvelling as each had rapidly faded away like they’d never been there.

The pain though—

The pain was a different story. The pain lingered, even though the physical marks were gone. And he might have marvelled or been terrified over the implications of what the rift—or who knew, maybe it had been Syriath when he’d been resurrected—had done to him, but nothing else had existed but the pain. No thoughts, his feelings of terror and helplessness long since numb. It was actually kind of a blessing, just existing in the pain, because it meant he didn’t worry over what would become of him. There was no past or future. Just him and the pain suspended in time.

For now, however, it seemed Miller was done with her experiments. She was compiling scans and readings or something at her desk. Colton was on some kind of device that might have been a futuristic version of a mobile phone. Neither of them were paying him any attention. Though, why would they when he was nothing but a bundle of raw nerves and agony?

“I don’t think he’s indestructible,” Miller was saying, though mostly to herself it seemed. “I think if he sustained a violent enough injury that stopped his heart or brain function before the ability to heal could kick in or complete its process, then he would definitely die. But serious injuries that would require any other person to seek medical attention wouldn’t be a worry for him. He’d just need to sit back and wait for his body to repair itself. Utterly fascinating.”

Miller finally looked over at Colton, annoyance in her features when she clearly realized he wasn’t paying attention. “Don’t you understand what this means?”

Colton looked up from his phone with a fond smile. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“This is it,” she gestured to Ianto, and as she stepped closer, he felt his body tense up all over. “This is the breakthrough we’ve been looking for. That the rift energy can do something other than cause disruptions to the space-time continuum.”

“What if his condition isn’t permeant?” Colton asked with a slight frown.

Miller looked a little crestfallen, but shrugged. “I guess only time will tell. I’m not going to send him down to the wards with the others. I’m going to keep him up here so I can monitor him constantly. If the levels of rift energy coming off him start dropping, then I guess we’ll have our answer.”

“Right, well, why don’t we take a break and go get something to eat?”

Miller looked towards him with an almost wistful expression, like a child who didn’t want to be drawn away from their favourite new toy.

“I’m going to stay here a bit longer. There’s a few more tests I want to run. Bring me something back, will you?”

Colton sent him a baleful look, like it was his fault Miller didn’t want to go eat with him. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

She nodded with a bright smile, sending him a little wave as he left the room.

Once they were alone, Miller turned to look over him with a thoughtful expression, before dragging over the trolley she’d been using earlier that was now scattered with bloodied instruments.

“Please,” he whispered, his voice rough from screaming himself hoarse earlier. “The pain. I don’t care what you do to me any longer, but please, give me something for the pain.”

She eyed him sceptically. “But your injuries have all healed.”

He swallowed, his throat swollen and raw. Though, he supposed his body would heal that eventually too.

“It doesn’t feel like they have.”

“Hmm,” she made a noise like he’d just told her some captivating medical fact and turned to make some notes on her computer.

Bloody cold-hearted bitch. How twisted did someone have to be to inflict the kind of pain onto another person the way she had been all afternoon, as if he wasn’t even human? But maybe that was the problem. In her eyes, he wasn’t human. He was a freak. An anomaly. A puzzle to be solved. A lab rat whose feelings were inconsequential.

“If you give me something for the pain, I can make sure he goes easy on you.”

This seemed to give her pause. “Who? What are you talking about?”

“Jack.” The one word he’d held onto in his mind through all of it. The one thing that’d helped him keep his sanity. “When Jack comes for me. I’ll make sure he goes easy on you. Please, just give me something, anything to make it stop hurting.”

“No one is coming for you,” she said indignantly, as though she found the very idea of it insulting. “This facility is one of the most secure on Mars.”

“ _Jack—_ ” His vision was blurring in and out, and he must have been hallucinating, as though talking about him had brought on a hallucination of the formidable man standing behind Miller in his dark blue military greatcoat like some kind of avenging angel, blue eyes hard and expression ready for retribution. “Jack won’t let that stop him.”

“No, I certainly won’t,” Jack drawled, bringing up his gun to aim at the back of Miller’s head. “Step away from him, nice and slow.”

Miller’s eyes widened and she did as Jack said, holding her hands out as she slowly turned to face him.

“Noah, you got her covered?” Jack asked as he edged around the woman toward him.

Noah came forward and roughly grabbed Miller’s wrists, snapping on a pair of cuffs.

“Owen, what are we looking at?” Jack put his gun away and came over, studying the mechanism on the outside of the exo-skeleton.

He’d been so focused on Jack, he hadn’t even notice Owen rushing to his side and pulling out some kind of medical scanner.

“I don’t know, these readings they’re— I can’t find any physical injuries, but his body is reacting as though he’s in extreme pain and under critical physical stress.”

“Ianto, what did they do to you?” Jack cupped his face in between his palms, his cheeks sticky with sweat and tears.

“Everything," he mumbled. “They did everything.”

Jack cursing was the last thing he heard before he finally let himself slip into the relief of darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

Jack pounded a fist on the outside of the exo-skeleton as Ianto slumped, unconscious. He spun to aim a deadly glare at the woman. There were small flecks of blood on her otherwise pristine white coat. Ianto’s blood. He clenched his fists, barely stopping himself from yanking out his gun a shooting her where she stood.

“Open it. _Now_.”

The woman squeaked in fear as Noah shoved her forward. Gwen stood nearby, keeping her gun trained steadily on the woman.

“No funny business now, or I’ll shoot,” Gwen warned in a tight voice.

The woman brought up both her cuffed hands and then pushed a series of buttons. The device whirred and sprung free. Gwen grabbed the collar of the woman’s lab coat, pulling her back, the gun now pressed against the woman’s head.

Jack stepped forward, taking Ianto’s dead weight and easing him out of the frame. He lowered him to the floor so Owen could get a better look at him.

“He’s in shock, his blood pressure is too low. Shit, he’s decompensating.” Owen shrugged out of the medical bag he’d been carrying and tossed it onto the floor, flinging it open with enough force to send several things skittering out of it. “I need to get his heart rate up.”

“If he dies, you’re going to be very sorry,” Gwen said to the woman in a low, angry voice. “I’m going to make damn sure of that.”

Jack reached down and took Ianto’s limp hand, watching on grim and helpless as Owen got out a dosing gun and loaded it with some kind of medication. He then took Ianto’s arm and after tapping his fingers on the inside of Ianto’s elbow a couple of times, shot the medicine into the vein.

After that, Owen took Ianto’s other hand, pressing his fingers into Ianto’s wrist and then looking down at the watch he wore.

“Is it working?” Jack demanded when he couldn’t take the silence any longer.

Owen ignored him, concentrating, but finally nodded. “I think he’s stabilizing. I’d normally say moving him is a bad idea, but in this case, staying here is probably going to be more detrimental to his health.” 

“I got you the usual—” A man stepped into the room but pulled up short when he saw them all, dropping the food he was holding to yank out a gun. He started edging toward the wall where there was an emergency button, but Noah rushed him. The pair slammed into the wall, and Noah managed to cold-cock him with the butt of his gun, leaving him to slump to the floor. Noah took the man’s weapon and then stepped back again.

“Let’s get out of here before anyone else turns up,” Jack ordered.  

Owen grabbed out something that was square, flat and silver. He took off the clear outer wrapper and shook it out—some kind of foil-like blanket.

“Wrap him in this, it’ll keep him warm.” Owen held it out and then helped Jack wrap it around the top half of Ianto’s body.

After that, Jack got to his feet and hefted Ianto into his arms.

“Jack, what are we going to do with her?” Gwen asked, still standing with her gun aimed at the woman.

“She’s coming with us. We need to have a _conversation_.” He put cold emphasis on the last word to make sure she understood exactly what kind of conversation they’d be having. One very similar to what she’d had with Ianto.

“No!” Despite the gun pointed at her, the woman started to struggle against Gwen who was trying to walk her forward.

A shot rang out, making everyone freeze. For a second, Jack thought Gwen had pulled the trigger. Except the woman was cowering, but otherwise unharmed.

He passed a glance over Owen, who was similarly looking back at him with confusion. Next, he looked at Noah, who was staring down at himself in surprise, where blood was blooming across the front of his shirt.

“No!” Jack yelled as the man Noah had left slumped on the floor—who’d obviously had a second gun hidden on him—shifted his aim to point at Owen.

Noah fell to his knees, but brought up his gun and squeezed off a single shot, hitting the man in the neck before slumping forward to land face-first on the floor. The woman next to Gwen started crying, screaming the man’s name. Gwen let her go and she fell down next to him, sobbing.

Owen rushed to Noah’s side and rolled him over, putting pressure on the wound in the middle of his chest that was pumping out rivers of blood.

“Just hold on, mate, hold on. We’ll get you out of this,” Owen was saying, pulling over the medical kit and grabbing out a gauze pad. Owen pressed it down over the injury, but in seconds it was soaked through.

Noah coughed, his next breath more of a gurgle. Blood dribbled from the side of his mouth as he went lax, his head rolling to the side and eyes staring sightlessly at nothing.

Jack’s breath caught in his chest and he held Ianto closer, dull pain reverberating through his entire body. An alarm suddenly bleated to life, a red light flashing in the corner of the room. Obviously, someone had heard the gunshots.

“We have to move,” Jack said to Gwen and Owen, his voice breaking over the words.

“What about her?” Gwen demanded, tone shrill.

“Just leave her!” He wanted revenge for Ianto being hurt, for Noah being killed more than anyone. But now he was more interested in getting the rest of his team out of here alive.

Gwen’s expression was pinched with anger as she stepped over and grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair. “Don’t think this is over. You hurt my friends. You killed someone I care about. We’re coming back for you.”

She let go of the woman’s hair with a rough shove, leaving her to fall against the side of her dead partner.

Owen hurriedly wiped the blood off his hands and then haphazardly threw the things he’d taken out of the medical kit back into it, before flipping it closed and slinging it across his shoulder.

As Gwen left the room and Owen pulled out his gun to hold ready as he followed after her, Jack paused to look down at Noah, guilt eating away at his insides like acid. Christ, he couldn’t even take the body and make sure Noah got the respect he deserved.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he said in a low broken voice. He sniffed, not able to do anything about the tears dripping down his cheeks because he was holding Ianto.

He forced himself to turn away and went after the others.

Lucas was waiting around the corner, out of sight at the end of the corridor, keeping the lift open so no reinforcements could access the sublevel unless they came down the stairs.

“What happened?” Lucas demanded as they approached. His gaze darted between them all. “Where’s Noah?”

Gwen just shook her head, expression sombre, leaving Lucas cursing.

They piled into the lift and Jack lowered Ianto so his feet were on the floor. Owen came over and slung one of Ianto’s arms over his shoulder so they could share his weight.

“Tosh, we’re coming in hot. You ready for us?” Jack said into him comm.

“Shuttle is online and ready to take off as soon as you’re on board. I’ve scrambled the security forces and sent them to the opposite end of the building to where you are. They think the emergency is a brawl in one of the inmate wings.”

Jack’s stomach pinched at the thought of all the innocent people trapped here that they couldn’t help. But he would, he vowed. They hadn’t taken on the Rift Management Agency before now because Torchwood had enough trouble simply being outlawed, and his missing memories were taking up a fair amount of his time. But when the RMA had taken Ianto, they’d made it personal. It was time someone stood up against the organisation that bore a striking resemblance to Torchwood One in London before the battle of Canary Warf.

They reached the ground level, lift chiming as it stopped. Gwen and Lucas brought up their guns, stepping out first. They’d cleared the upper level when they’d arrived. Tosh had hacked the government systems and made them a fake UNIT profile and given them the authority to do an inspection on grounds of a contamination getting loose in the building. People had been more than happy to evacuate when Owen had loudly started describing symptoms of pustules and coughing up blood to the guys manning the security check points.

They moved quickly but carefully through the open area and down the short corridor to the garage where various ships and shuttles were parked. The back of their vehicle was open and waiting for them, engines rumbling quietly in readiness for take-off.

Inside, he and Owen laid Ianto across a couple of seats as Gwen stood nearby with a pensive expression, while Lucas dropped behind the controls. However, they’d barely got the rear hatchway closed before a siren sounded and the huge double doors started sliding closed, cutting them off from the outside world.

“Tosh, what’s happening?” He left Ianto to Owen and went to the front of the shuttle where Tosh sat in the co-pilot’s chair.

“It’s some sort of automated lockdown system.” She frowned at her screen, typing quickly on the keyboard in her lap.

“Can you override it?” He tried not to sound impatient, knowing she was probably already doing her best, but very aware of the seconds ticking by, bringing them closer to being caught.

“It’s going to take some time,” she responded, sounding disappointed in herself.

“There’s a manual override,” Lucas said. He nodded out the shuttle windscreen. “On the doors out there. I can get it open.”

“Jack.” Owen called out.

He glanced over his shoulder at the doctor.

“He’s waking up.”

Jack looked at the pair sitting behind the shuttle controls. “Keep trying, Tosh.”

He went over and dropped down to one knee where Ianto was groaning softly, before blinking open his eyes.

“Hey, welcome back,” he said in quiet voice, setting a gentle hand on Ianto’s shoulder.

Ianto looked around, seeming confused and groggy.

“You’re safe, we’re on the shuttle, heading back to the Archives.” Not quite the truth, but Ianto didn’t need to know any differently.

“How are you feeling?” Owen asked him, gaining Ianto’s attention.

“Hurts,” he croaked. “Everything hurts.”

Owen shrugged out of the medical kit he was still wearing. “I’ll give you something for the pain. I’d also recommend a mild sedative.”

Ianto gave a tight nod, lips pressed together, face pale, lines of strain bracketing his mouth.

Jack watched as Owen prepared the dosing gun again, this time shooting the pharmaceuticals into Ianto’s shoulder.

“Try to rest,” Jack said to him, smoothing a hand over his clammy brow and though his sweat-dampened hair.

Ianto released a long breath and let his eyes slip closed again.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Owen promised, nodding toward Tosh and Lucas who were having an increasingly heated discussion.

“Thanks.” Jack clasped him on the shoulder for a second before stepping the short distance to Tosh and Lucas.

“What’s going on?” he cut in on the pair before their argument could escalate.

“Lucas wants to go out and use the manual override. But I’m close to getting through their system—”

“Not in time, you won’t.” Lucas twisted in his seat to face Jack. “They’ve worked out there was no brawl between the inmates and are now trying to locate the source of the alarm being tripped. It’s not going to take them long to find the lab and figure out what happened. I can have that door open in a minute flat.”

“Could I go out and have you talk me through it?” Jack asked, not wanting to let Lucas leave the shielded safety of their shuttle.

“Maybe. But it would take twice as long. There’s no one out there yet, Jack. Let me do my job so we can get the hell out of here.”

Logically, it was the smart thing to do. But after what they’d done to Ianto, after Noah being killed, his emotions were all over the place, getting in the way of letting his team do their job.

“Go then,” he said, despite the apprehension gnawing at him over letting Lucas go out there.

“Jack—” Tosh started in a disbelieving voice.

“We need to get out of here, Tosh, and unless you can get those doors open right now, then we need Lucas to go out and access the manual override.”

Tosh shook her head but didn’t say anything, returning her attention back to her computer with determination, like she was going to try and beat Lucas to it. Jack really hoped she did, but until then, they had to take the only option available to them.

Lucas manoeuvred the shuttle over and set it down right in front of the doors so they could fly straight through as soon as they were open. After that, he put the vehicle in standby mode and then jumped out of the chair to jog across the shuttle and out the rear hatchway.

Jack lowered himself into the pilot’s chair, gaze raking over the various screens where Tosh was monitoring the entire facility. Someone reported in with the find of the bodies in the lab.

“Oh no,” Tosh muttered, typing more furiously, interfering with communication so it’d take longer for the security forces to organise themselves.

Beyond the shuttle, true to his word, Lucas had gotten the doors to start sliding open. But he was still fiddling with the control panel.

“Lucas, what are you doing?” Jack asked into his comm.

“Just give me a second. I want to jam the doors open to make sure they can’t close again.”

Some kind of alert chimed on Tosh’s computer and Jack glanced over at her. “What’s that?”

“Something called protocol zeta.” She studied the screen, her eyes widening. “Oh God. Lucas!”

She didn’t get to say anything else as all the lights on the shuttle flicked and a kind of angry humming emanated from outside.

Lucas went rigid suddenly, visible bolts of electricity rolling and flashing over his body.

“Tosh!” Jack yelled, shooting up out of the chair.

“The whole outer side of the complex has become electrified. It’s a security protocol to make sure no one escapes.”

“Shut it down!”

“I’m trying,” she cried out in reply, fingers flying over the keyboard.

Jack launched himself out of the cockpit and sprinted out, rounding the shuttle and closing in on Lucas. He skidded to a stop a step away, the hairs on the backs of his arms standing up at the static charge in the air from the amount of electricity snapping over the walls.

Jack took a shallow breath, preparing himself, before reaching out to yank Lucas away from the wall.

Everything went black for a second and he collapsed to the concrete, still holding Lucas. Whether it was through sheer will or the fact he hadn’t taken that many volts, he didn’t die and held onto consciousness with steely tenacity. He struggled to his feet and grabbed Lucas, hauling him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold as he ran back into the shuttle.

Owen was waiting for him as he lowered Lucas to the floor. Without waiting to get Owen’s diagnosis, Jack rushed to the pilot’s chair and threw himself in.

A second later they whooshed through the doors and out into the dusty wasteland, quickly gaining altitude. He kept an eye on the exterior scanners to make sure they weren’t being followed, but it seemed they’d gotten away clean.

Clean, but not without casualties.

“Owen?” he called over his shoulder as they left the planet’s atmosphere.

“I’m sorry Jack.” Owen’s voice was a little rough around the edges. “He didn’t make it.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big SORRY to all my readers!! I actually thought I had already posted the final chapter, but just realised I hadn't. So, here it is! Hopefully worth the wait ;)

Ianto came around, expecting the pain to start pulsing through his body in rolling waves, but the sensation was blissfully absent. He felt like he’d been put through the ringer, though. He was weak and aching with a dull sensation like he’d pulled every muscle in his body.

He opened his heavy eyelids, taking a second to focus. He was in Owen’s medical area in the hub—no, not the original hub. Hub two. Or was it hub three now? For all he knew, it was hub bloody two hundred considering he’d left the original hub a thousand years in the past.

His gaze landed on Jack sitting on a chair next to him, eyes red-rimmed like he’d been crying, but he wasn’t looking at him, Jack was looking up at Owen who was talking.

Owen glanced down at him and stopped mid-sentence, which gained him Jack’s attention as well. When he felt a squeeze around his fingers, Ianto realized Jack was holding his hand.

“’Bout time you woke up, sleeping beauty,” Owen said, coming over to check him. “The sedative wore off ages ago. I was just trying to convince Jack to let me stick a pin in your foot to make sure you were still alive.”

“Your bedside manner never fails to amaze me,” he replied, finding his voice was husky.

“Water?” Owen asked, already shifting over to get him a cup.

He started to sit up, but Jack stood, slipping an arm around him. “Wait, let me help you.”

With Jack steadying him and taking most of his weight, he managed to get upright and swing his legs off the edge of the examination table. Jack sat down next to him and Ianto leaned into his side, not even attempting to pretend like he was strong enough to sit up on his own. Everything was spinning, making him wish he had of stayed down.

Jack took the water from Owen and then held it up to his mouth so he could take a long drink. Once the water had gone down, he felt much better and not quite as dizzy any longer.

“Do you remember what happened?” Owen crouched down and ran some kind of scanner over him.

He nodded, not wanting to remember, but it was kind of impossible not to. He tensed up all over, and Jack’s arm tightened around his shoulder.

“Well, the good news is you’re not any worse for wear, considering the condition we found you in.” Owen lowered the scanner and eyed him closely. “But, Ianto, I don’t understand. There was blood everywhere in that room. And your body was reacting as if you’d sustained massive injuries. Except there wasn’t a scratch on you.”

“I healed.” Even though the fact had become a fixed piece of logic in his mind over the hours in that lab, he found it hard to believe.

“What do you mean you _healed_?” Jack asked, sounding both confused and concerned.

With a half-breath, he pushed to his feet, out of Jack’s hold.

Owen got up and moved out of his way, not saying anything as he stiffly crossed the short distance to the nearby bench littered with medical instruments.

He found a scalpel and turned back to where Jack and Owen were staring at him.

“Ianto what are you—” Jack started ominously as he held up the sharp blade.

Gritting his teeth, he slashed it across his palm, leaving Jack and Owen yelling at him.

Jack wrenched the scalpel out of his hand and slammed it down on the nearby bench while Owen grabbed a bandage and pressed it into the wound.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Jack demanded heatedly.

His palm was throbbing, but he knew by now the tissue and flesh would have knitted back together.

“Check it. Take the bandage off and look at it.” His voice rose with each word, a sudden anger flaring within him. Like it wasn’t enough that he’d died and been resurrected six months later and then thrown a thousand years into the future by the rift. Now apparently, he was brimming with rift energy and had the ability to heal. Didn’t save him the pain, but at least he didn’t need to worry about cutting himself shaving anymore. A few seconds and poof! Like it had never happened.

Owen sent him a sceptical look that somehow also said he was an idiot, before gingerly peeling back the bandage, obviously expecting to find blood dripping out. Except then he lifted the bandage away altogether and got another piece of gauze to wipe away what little blood was still on his palm.

“Fucking hell, Jack. He’s right. There’s nothing there. He healed.”

Jack passed a look between them, clearly not believing them, before taking Ianto’s hand in a far gentler grip than Owen had.

“What the hell is going on?” Jack muttered, sliding his thumb over the unblemished skin of Ianto’s palm.

“I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I’d say my miraculous ability to heal is directly connected to the fact I’m radiating rift energy like a leaky gas pipe.”

Jack let him go to raise his arm and flip open the cover on his wrist strap. He scanned Ianto again, and then pressed several buttons.

“No change in the levels between now and when I scanned him earlier in the day,” Jack reported grimly.

“Is it permanent?” Owen asked Jack.

“I have no idea,” Jack replied, gaze running over Ianto like he was looking for clues.

“I’d recommend regular scans over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” Owen said, in full doctor mode. “Both for the rift energy and any physiological changes.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “And it probably goes without saying, but you won’t be leaving the Archives station any time soon.”

Right now, the way he was feeling and the dark memories of what he’d just been through hovering at the edges of his mind, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

“No arguments here,” he replied. “Are we done for now? I could really use a shower.”

He felt sticky and his skin was still streaked with dried blood and sweat.

“I’ll check on you in maybe an hour, but you can head down to your suite,” Owen said, turning to his computer and tapping at the screen.

“I’ll walk you down,” Jack offered his arm, and Ianto took it, ignoring the grin flitting over Owen’s lips. Truthfully, though he was feeling a bit steadier on his feet, he wasn’t sure if he could make it all the way down to his suite without stumbling.

Neither of them said anything as they took the lift down to the accommodation level and went into his room. Jack walked him all the way into the bathroom.

“Do you think you’ll be alright alone in the shower?” Jack asked with a straight face. But there was definitely amusement lurking in his gaze. “Slippery surfaces, soapy products, lots of water. It’s dangerous. A disaster waiting to happen. They should come with a health and safety warning.”

“Jack, any shower with you in it definitely requires a health and safety warning,” he replied, thinking of all the times they’d gotten a little too energetic in the small bathroom of his flat.

Jack laughed, a definite spark in his gaze now. “Seriously, if you need help, I promise to keep my hands away from all of the interesting places.”

He shook his head. He was a little tempted, but for one, he really didn’t have the energy for anything other than washing. And two, he still couldn’t get around the fact that Jack didn’t remember him. For some reason, he just got the sense that it wouldn’t feel right if anything happened between them.

“I’ll be fine. But if the water is still running in half an hour, then maybe you should check on me.”

Jack went over and sat on the couch, picking up the PDA that controlled pretty much everything in the suite and turned the TV on. “Yell out if you change your mind.”

Ianto took himself into the bathroom and stripped out of his pants—the only thing he was still wearing after dressing that morning. He threw them straight into the bin, not even giving a second thought to trying to save them. They hadn’t belonged to him in the first place and besides all the blood and rips, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to remove the memories from them.

Knowing that Jack was waiting for him, he methodically but quickly washed every inch of himself, not lingering under the spray even though he wanted to.

It was less than fifteen minutes before he was out again, crossing the hallway to his bedroom with the towel slung around his hips. He caught a glimpse of Jack on the couch, gaze not on the TV, but looking right at him so their eyes met in the brief few steps it took him to get to his bedroom.

He went into the closet and got out the jeans he’d worn the day before and a clean t-shirt. Pulling the jeans straight on, he was still shaking the t-shirt out of its folds as he came out of the walk-in wardrobe and found Jack leaning indolently against the doorway of his bedroom.

“Feeling better now?” Jack asked, gaze roaming over him as though checking for any signs he wasn’t okay.

“Actually, I am,” he replied, a little surprised. He was almost feeling like himself again. The achy weakness seemed to have dissipated. The shadowed memories darkening the edges of his mind, however, were a different story. Jesus, he didn’t know how he was going to close his eyes to sleep tonight without seeing that woman’s face. Without remembering the pain she’d inflicted on him.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, straightening from his lean and cautiously stepping forward, obviously having seen something in his expression.

“Just trying not to think too closely about it. What they did.” He tossed the towel across the top of the nearby dresser and slipped the t-shirt over his head.

By the time he’d settled it over his jeans, Jack was standing right in front of him.

“Ianto, what did they do? When I asked you at the facility, you said _everything_.”

He glanced away from Jack, not wanting to remember, not wanting to say the words. But he knew Jack wouldn’t leave it be until he’d told him something.

“When she realized I could instantly heal, they wanted to test the extent of it. They cut me, burned me, bruised me, with increasing severity until—” He’d forced the words out clinically, detached, like it had happened to someone else. But he couldn’t separate from the memory of wanting to die rather than be in pain a minute longer. “I think they took me as close to death as they dared without actually killing me. More than once.”

Jack muttered a curse, voice hoarse. “Ianto, I’m so sorry—”

“It seems to be a thing with us since I got here.” He returned his attention to Jack, trying for a smile but ultimately failing.

“What does?” Jack asked in return.

“Apologising for things that aren’t our fault.”

Jack shrugged helplessly. “What else am I supposed to say?”

Ianto didn’t have an answer for that, and they simply stared at each other for a long moment.

“There’s something I want to show you,” Jack finally said, an odd tone to his words. “Feeling up for a short walk?”

Ianto nodded and went to put on some socks and shoes. When he was done, Jack led him out of the suite and to the lifts. They went up a level, which left them just below the hub, he guessed, from what he’d learned of the layout of the Archives station so far.

The lift opened up to a huge room, that must have spanned nearly the entire hub above them. But apart from a single workstation in the middle of the cavernous space, the rest of it was open wall space, all made up of what had to be hundreds of screens, each displaying all kinds of information. Some had physical pictures, notes and printed documents stuck up to them. Some sections of the walls were brimming with information while others were completely blank. Though it seemed to be in some kind of order, it was also a complete jumble.

“What is this?” he asked, slowly stepping forward, not sure what to look at first.

“This is me.” Jack swept an arm around. “This is what we’ve been able to reconstruct of my life. My timeline. Everything I did over—well, thousands of years, it seems. I know I said I didn’t know how old I am, but at a guess, I must be well over three thousand years old, which is kind of terrifying when you think about it. Still, looking pretty good, huh?”

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the typical Jack-ism and took it all in with new perspective. “Why are some sections blank?”

Jack looked at one of the empty walls, shadows in his gaze. “I haven’t found anyone who can tell me where I was or what I was doing during those time periods.”

Ianto turned to look at him, because it all somehow seemed so sad, everything that Jack had of himself plastered across a couple of walls in cold, hard facts, like Gwen used to do for some of the dead victims of the cases they’d worked.

“Do you have any idea why your memories might have been taken?”

Jack shrugged, the movement careless, but his expression the opposite. “It happened once before, apparently, in the 51st century. When I worked for the Time Agency. They took two years of my life and I never found out the reason for it. That was why I left, actually. Maybe I eventually found out the truth and they decided to take them again, only make it more permanent the second time. My only other theory is that I found out something that someone didn’t want me to know, and since they couldn’t kill me—”

“The stole your memories instead,” Ianto finished when he broke off.

Jack met his gaze, a fire in his eye the likes of which Ianto had never seen before. Truth be told, it was almost scary.

“No matter if it takes me another thousand years, I will find them. And I will make them pay for this. I guess that’s the benefit of being immortal. I’ve got all the time in the world to make sure my revenge will always be served methodically and ice cold.”

In the face of how big this problem was, Ianto felt kind of helpless to do anything to aid Jack. “I’m not sure if I can tell you much more than Tosh and Gwen already have, but I’ll help you however I can.”

“Thank you, Ianto. That means a lot.” Jack set a hand on his shoulder. “Same goes for you. I can’t get you back to 2009, and I wish like hell I could go back in time and change what happened to you today. But since I can’t do either of those things, I’ll do anything else to help you. Anything.”

“Kiss me.” The words came out before he’d even thought about them.

And he was having a weird moment of déjà vu, because history was repeating. Their first kiss, the night he’d let Jack get taken through the rift to an alien world, only to realise how wrong he’d been about Jack and Lisa and everything. He’d gone after Jack to get him back again. Afterwards, sitting in the SUV on the side of some random street in Cardiff, the rain pounding down on the roof of the car, he’d told Jack that everything hurt. Jack had said he’d do anything to take the pain away, and he’d responded with the same words. _Kiss me_.

Unlike that first time, he hadn’t managed to completely stun Jack with the surprise of his request. This time he didn’t have to grab Jack and kiss him first. This time, Jack slowly stepped forward and brought his hand up to slide along his jaw, drawing him in.

Ianto exhaled a ragged breath and closed his eyes a second before Jack’s lips touched his.

It was like he hadn’t been kissed in forever. Like it had been an eternity since he’d last felt the sensual slide of Jack’s mouth against his. And maybe it really had. Maybe it’d been a thousand years and six months since the last time they’d held one another, breath mingling, lips lingering, bodies pressing like there was nothing else in the world except the two of them.

He’d been reluctant at the idea of sleeping with Jack like nothing had happened—and he still was. But the kiss was telling. Even if Jack’s mind didn’t remember him, it seemed his body did. The kiss told him things Jack could never convey with words.

After a long moment, Jack broke the kiss with an uneven exhale, but left his mouth close, so the breath brushed over Ianto’s lips. “Is that the kind of help you were hoping for?”

Ianto leaned back so he could look into his eyes, Jack’s familiar suave grin firmly in place.

“I think that was the kind of help we both needed,” he answered.

“Now what do we do?” Jack asked, keeping his hands set firmly on Ianto’s waist.

“Now we set Torchwood three loose on the galaxy to find your missing memories and hope to God we don’t accidentally destroy the universe instead.”


End file.
